The University of Liverpool rand CyanoCapture Ltd are joining forces to develop the next generation of carboxysome-based targeted drug delivery systems, exploiting unique traits found in fast-growing cyanobacteria.
Through a 12-month research partnership and tech transfer plan, they will bring together CyanoCapture's proprietary genetic engineering tools, scalable cyanobacteria strains and peptide expression technology with breakthrough research pioneered by Professor Luning Liu's laboratory to engineer protein nanocages for biopharmaceutical applications.
Breakthrough science meets industrial innovation
Liverpool's Professor Luning Liu is an expert in microbial bioenergetics and bioengineering, and his research group has made significant advances in understanding how to engineer carboxysomes to load with peptide cargoes including enzymes and recombinant proteins.
CyanoCapture Ltd, a leading innovator in industrial synthetic biology, uses advanced genetic engineering and multi-omics datasets to reprogramme the world's fastest growing photosynthetic cells to become biological factories capable of cost-effectively manufacturing a $40bn market's worth of hard-to-synthesise peptide molecules directly from CO2, nitrates and phosphates. T
he company has successfully scaled up the cultivation of its cell lines to 3400 litres with record-breaking productivities and is in the process of transferring its process to CDMO facilities in India and Canada in 2026.
This collaboration has been supported by the University's Partnership and Innovation Fund (PIF). In addition, CyanoCapture has sponsored a Post Doctoral Research Assistant (PDRA) for 12 months to work in the Liu lab on novel IP co-developed by Prof Luning Liu and CyanoCapture.
The company is also co-supervising a PhD student under a four-year programme funded by BBSRC DTP, to progress other elements of cyanobacterial CO2 fixation and carboxysome engineering that will fill the final missing pieces in the broader technology roadmap.
What are carboxysomes?
Carboxysomes are bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) consisting of polyhedral protein shells approximately 100 nanometers in diameter, filled with enzymes essential for carbon dioxide fixation, primarily ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) and carbonic anhydrase. These specialized structures are found in all cyanobacteria and many chemotrophic bacteria that fix carbon dioxide.
Recent breakthrough by the Liu lab showed that it is possible to load these structures with other cargo molecules of interest instead of the usual enzymes that it carries (Li et al 2024, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsnano.3c11559). It has been shown incidentally, that CyanoCapture's cell line expresses one of the highest copy numbers of these structures and is an ideal production platform for engineered carboxysomes.
The collaboration between the University and CyanoCapture will focus on developing innovative methods for producing targeted delivery systems using engineered carboxysomes, combining advanced molecular biology techniques (like CRISPR) with scalable biomanufacturing systems from 15 litres up to 1000 litres for real-world industrial applications.
Professor Luning Liu, from the Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, said "Our research has revealed fundamental mechanisms by which cyanobacteria build and optimize their carbon assimilation machinery "By partnering with CyanoCapture, we can translate these discoveries into practical solutions for next-generation biomanufacturing."
Dr David Kim, CEO of CyanoCapture Ltd, added: "AI x Drug Discovery will create an explosion in novel drugs and vaccines. But some may fail at clinical trials due to off-target effects. We are combining Liverpool's world-class expertise in bionanotechnology and our cyanobacterial platform to solve this problem. Our joint project will invent the next generation of affordable protein nanocages that may be able to load peptides to target specific tissues."
