Photo: Joachim Rode
Photo: Joachim Rode

Analysing cell factories

Biotechnology and biochemistry
This ultra-modern analytical laboratory is located in the recently inaugurated premises on the DTU Lyngby campus housing the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability—DTU Biosustain.

Here, the centre’s researchers analyse the contents of various biological samples. Often, the samples are the result of a long process, where other researchers at the centre have designed the cells to produce a given chemical or medicinal product—like a kind of cell factory.

In the analysis lab, the lab technicians and analytical chemists identify the number and content of the molecules in the fluids from the cells and inside the cells themselves. The analyses are conducted using advanced equipment such as mass spectrometers. In the laboratory, products are also purified, i.e. isolated from other molecules in the sample so that only the pure chemical or drug remains.

Read more about the centre’s work.

Photo: Joachim Rode