Researchers to ensure green transition – cell factory by cell factory

Closer to industry and the market

To achieve this, Luuk van der Wielen wants BRIGHT solutions to reach a higher TRL, which stands for technology readiness level. A low TRL is when the technologies work in the laboratory. But for industry and the rest of society to benefit from the new bio-based solutions, BRIGHT needs to go further than that, according to Luuk van der Wielen:

“Our research and innovation need to leave the laboratories. From being excellent at demonstrating proof-of-concepts in the laboratories, we now need to get more of the technologies out and mature them in real production environments – at companies that already have production facilities and need our solutions.”

To succeed in this, the starting point for the projects must be less oriented towards scientific ‘discovery’ and instead start closer to industry and the market, according to the Executive Director:

"Instead of looking at a microbe and investigating what it could do for us, we need to look at what the world and the industry needs and then find the microorganism and engineer it so that it can help us get there. In future, we should wait to go into the laboratory until we have identified – possibly together with industry – what is needed."

Biofoundry as a driver

In recent years, biotechnology laboratories around the world have begun introducing new, robot-based workflows, while integrating multiple technology platforms into a unified infrastructure known as a biofoundry.

Such a biofoundry has been developed under Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability and will continue to develop, improve and expand under BRIGHT.

In a biofoundry it’s possible to develop cell factories and biomanufacturing processes much faster than before, says Bo Skjold Larsen, departing Head of Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability.

“We have shown that with a biofoundry, we can reduce the time spent developing a cell factory by a factor of ten. Where it used to take 200 man-years, it may now take 20-25 man-years,” says Bo Skjold Larsen.

He explains that the shorter development time reduces the costs for optimizing microorganisms to produce substances that can replace fossil resources in production.

”A well-functioning biofoundry is key to accelerate the green transition,” says Bo Skjold Larsen.

In BRIGHT, the biofoundry will increase collaborations across DTU departments and extend its capabilities to more external academic and industrial projects in order to enhance research value and commercial potential through optimization and scale-up.

Microbes for carbon utilisation

Luuk van der Wielen took up his position as Executive Director in September 2025 and has since been busy establishing collaborations with, among others, the first industrial partners.

One of these is the American biotech company LanzaTech. Over the past 20 years, the company has developed a technology that enables it to utilise carbon from CO2 emissions from the steel and cement industries as a building block for new products such as chemicals and fuel.

“Carbon is a resource that we have plenty of. Even in a fossil-free society, we will still have a lot of carbon that we could utilise,” says Luuk van der Wielen.

He explains that Denmark is a particularly interesting place because it has an extensive infrastructure for the distribution of natural gas, to which the biogas plants are also connected. This provides easy access to large quantities of the carbon found in biogas.

"Perhaps we can utilise that carbon to manufacture high-value products instead of burning it to use the heat. By collaborating with LanzaTech, we can learn something about how to utilise carbon for some of the purposes that BRIGHT will help to find solutions for," says Luuk van der Wielen, who also has plans to reach out to Danish players involved in carbon collaboration – both those who can contribute carbon and those who can utilise it.

Or, as the Executive Director concludes:

"We are open for business."