Ginkgo Protein Expression Services

Overview

Help derisk and accelerate timeline to protein production.

Whether you’re looking to get a headstart with Ginkgo’s top-tier tailored fungal & yeast strains, optimize strain performance for protein production, hit higher titers with classical strain improvement using non-GM approaches, or increase scale up production efficiency, Ginkgo’s best-in-class capabilities empower your protein R&D.

Have a question or ready to start a project?

Overcome Protein Expression Bottlenecks.
with Ginkgo’s end-to-end capabilities.

Proteins play a pivotal role in influencing taste, texture, and health benefits. These functionalities are governed by protein sequences and cell-mediated modifications during production, which often pose challenges for precision fermentation and cell engineering. For instance, dairy proteins’ hydrophilicity is crucial for cheese function but makes it susceptible to degradation within cells. 

Optimizing production hosts is essential to enable the fermentation of these proteins. This involves eliminating proteases, introducing chaperones, creating promoters, expression systems, and tailoring them to each protein’s unique requirements. The process also entails design, downstream processing, and scale-up efforts.

Successfully bringing a protein to market is a complex journey.  Leverage Ginkgo’s expertise to access rapid and scalable solutions. From host selection to optimizing your host strain development and scaling, Gingko Protein Services help you overcome bottlenecks, cut capital expenditure, expedite development, and reduce R&D risk. 

We’ve invested significantly in developing our in-house suite of host strains, specifically designed for glycoprotein, iron-bound, and structural protein production, with the goal of enhancing titer and functionality, including protein targets within sweeteners, alternative dairy, alternative egg, thickeners and preservatives.  

A pale yellow protein sitting on an ivory backdrop

How can we help you?

Host Strain Headstarts 

Host Strain Headstarts 

Ginkgo’s advanced strains are designed for specialized protein expression. Our dedication to this effort stems from the extensive research and pre-work invested in enhancing these suites of strain backgrounds. We’ve focused on genome modifications: multi-copy integrations, codon optimizations, secretion signals, tunable promoter systems, post-processing, and folding machinery to improve titer and functionality. 

We can help you:

  • Derisk host strain selection for further protein engineering by drawing from our suite of fungal and yeast strain backgrounds that are specially optimized to express functional properties of key protein ingredients, such as iron binding, as well as protein stability and secretion 
  • Already have a host you want to work with? We can evaluate, compare, and onboard your host strain
  • Plate-scale samples from Ginkgo’s assets for testing
  • Identify suitable production strain for GRAS filing & scaling

Optimize Strain Performance

Optimize Strain Performance

Speed up research & development with our broad and constantly expanding toolkit of genomic parts, and ultra high throughput screening approaches— to iteratively improve your host strain for improved protein functionality, stability, bioactivity, expression, and more.

We can help you: 

  • Optimize expression with proprietary methanol-free expression constructs in Pichia yeast and filamentous fungi
  • If you have your own strain, Ginkgo applies expert analytics to your strain, including biodiagnostics like transcriptome or proteome analysis 
  • Accelerate development: screen tens of thousands strains per campaign using automated High-Throughput screening workflows 
  • Strain engineering towards easier down-stream processing, meeting regulatory specifications
  • Strain engineering towards COGs improvement and functionality 

Classical Strain Improvement   

Classical Strain Improvement   

Ginkgo’s advancements in classical strain improvement (mycelium included) includes UV, chemical mutagenesis, encapsulation and screening, allowing for further improvement and step changes in protein titer. 

We can help you:

  • Improve production strains using non-GM approaches (mutagenesis, encapsulated screen) 
  • Modify protein or biomass content in your mycelium for alternative food applications
  • If  your have your own host strain, Ginkgo refines your strain through random engineering (such as ENCAPS, transposon based mutagenesis)
  • Generate 250mL-scale samples and Omics analysis (proteomics)
  • Circularize your process by switching carbon sources using Adaptive Lab Evolution ALE

Increase Scale-Up Production Efficiency 

Increase Scale-Up Production Efficiency 

Access our diverse fermentation capacity, ranging from Ginkgo’s fleet of ~300 Sartorius Ambr® 250 bioreactors to vessels ranging from 1 to 50,000 L with our trusted manufacturing partners, including GMP production. Optimize downstream processing to meet regulatory specifications, perform functionality testing, and utilize Ginkgo’s thermal, physical, and chemical separation capabilities for efficient purification, enabling further analysis, testing, or proof of concept.

We can help you:

  • Optimize fermentation at 30L+ scale, generate samples
  • Purify a sample protein  for further analysis or proof of concept 
  • Help you outsource specific functionality testing of proteins with our CDMO partners
  • Seamless  technology transfer to your team or to your manufacturing partner of choice
  • Downstream processing 
A pale yellow protein sitting on an ivory backdrop

Speak with Us

Start a project today.

We program cells—enabling you to grow the future of medicine, materials, food, and more.

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Markets We Serve

Featured Projects & News

Ginkgo is your end-to-end synthetic biology R&D partner. Browse a selection of our partner projects and case studies to explore how biology is being used across industries.

Speak to our team today to access more.

Agriculture

Crop protection and nutrition, animal health and wellness, carbon solutions: we’re here to help. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the agricultural sector.

Agriculture

Strain Improvement for Sustainable Agriculture with Bayer

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Ginkgo Expands Agricultural Biologicals Division, Closes Deal with Bayer

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Expanding Our Platform Capabilities in Agricultural Biologicals and Launching Flagship Partnership with Bayer

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Optimizing Enzyme Expression and Performance with Zymtronix

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Optimizing the Brightness of Glowing Plants with Light Bio

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Biopharmaceutical

Use our synthetic biology platform to discover, optimize, and scale up a wide range of therapeutic modalities. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the biopharmaceutical sector.

Biopharmaceutical

Optimizing Crucial Drug Manufacturing of APIs with Merck

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Unlocking the Potential of Expression Systems for Medicines with Novo Nordisk

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Improving the Specificity and Activity of a Biocatalyst

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Enzyme Discovery Powered by Large Metagenomic Libraries

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High Throughput Screening for Designing Novel CAR-T Cell Therapies

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Manufacturing Breakthrough for mRNA Raw Materials with Aldevron

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Advancing Treatments for Orphan and Rare Diseases with Selecta Biosciences

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Developing Next-Generation Gene Therapy Capsids with Selecta Biosciences

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Improving the Manufacture of Biosynthetic Heparin with Optimvia

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Investigational Synthetic Biotic Medicine for Homocystinuria with Synlogic

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Optimizing Enzyme Expression and Performance with Zymtronix

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Developing Circular RNA-based Therapeutics with Esperovax

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Engineering Bacteria for Cancer Patient Treatment with Prokarium

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New Platform Ventures: Launching Verb Biotics, Ayana Bio

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Accelerating Production of Essential Medicines with Antheia

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Developing High-Efficacy Adjuvants for Vaccines with SaponiQx

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Developing Synthetic Biotics for Gout with Synlogic

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Discovering Novel Live Biotherapeutics with Microba

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Engineering Living Biotherapeutics for Gastrointestinal Health with Tantu

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Needle in a Haystack: Looking for Compounds to Treat COVID-19

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Supporting COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Development with Moderna

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Teaming Up to Improve Antibody Therapeutics for COVID-19

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A New Modality of Medicine: Nucleic Acid Vaccines

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Governments

Secure the things you care about the most — your people, your environment, your home. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the public sector.

Governments

Building a Global Bioradar System with Concentric by Ginkgo

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Manufacturing Breakthrough for mRNA Raw Materials with Aldevron

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Tracking Pathogen Variants with Rwanda Biomedical Centre

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Supporting COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Development with Moderna

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Expanding Ginkgo’s Platform for Biosecurity and Pandemic Responsiveness

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Accelerating Industrial Adoption of High-Performance Biomaterials with Cambium

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Developing Water Quality Biosensors with FREDSense

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Concentric by Ginkgo: COVID-19 testing at scale

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Industrials

Chemicals, materials, fuels, waste, mining, water treatment: biology is revolutionizing industrial processes. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the industrial sectors.

Industrials

Aliquots

Optimizing Production of Biobased Speciality Chemicals with Lygos

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Accelerating Industrial Adoption of High-Performance Biomaterials with Cambium

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Biobased Alternatives to Synthetic Polymers with Bioweg

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Improving the Specificity and Activity of a Biocatalyst

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Sustainable Beauty and Personal Care Products with Sumitomo Chemical

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Developing Water Quality Biosensors with FREDSense

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Genes × Jeans: Accelerating Production of Sustainable Dyes with Huue

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Metabolic Engineering for Lower Cost Feedstocks

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Commercializing Cultured Ingredients with Robertet

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Ultra High Throughput Genome Engineering for the Production of Specialty Chemicals

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Nutrition & Wellness

Improve proteins and enzymes, fats and oils, flavors and fragrances, and so much more with synthetic biology. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the nutrition and wellness sector.

Nutrition & Wellness

Celebrating Cronos Group’s First-of-a-Kind CBC Product

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Sustainable Beauty and Personal Care Products with Sumitomo Chemical

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Producing Rare, Natural Ingredients with Givaudan

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Scaled Production of Cultured CBG with Cronos Group

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Optimizing Enzyme Expression and Performance with Zymtronix

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Scaling Production of Cultured THCV with Cronos Group

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Optimizing Silk Protein Production with Bolt Threads

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Improving Production Efficiency for Vibrant Food Colors with Phytolon

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Metabolic Engineering for Lower Cost Feedstocks

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Launching Commercial Production of Cultured Cannabinoids with Cronos

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New Platform Ventures: Launching Verb Biotics, Ayana Bio

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Commercializing Cultured Ingredients with Robertet

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