Empowered Patient Podcast Precision Fermentation Unlocking the Potential of Lactoferrin and Other Functional Proteins with Fengru Lin TurtleTree
Fengru Lin, Co-Founder and CEO of TurtleTree, is applying precision fermentation technology to produce high-value ingredients for food and beverages without the need for animals. This biotech company's first goal is to expand the production of lactoferrin, a protein found in small quantities in milk that has been shown to promote gut health and immunity. Finding a scalable way to produce lactoferrin will lead to adding this iron-binding element to plant-based milks and energy drinks.
Fengru explains, "A couple of years ago, I was learning how to make cheese as a hobby. It was quite a fanatic period of time. I went up to Vermont from Singapore for a couple of weeks to learn how to make cheese and I wanted to replicate this whole process back in Singapore. But in Singapore, we have no access to cows, we have no access to raw, fresh milk. So, I had to go down to Indonesia and Thailand to look for milk. In this journey, I was exposed to a lot of challenges around the dairy industry, things like contract farming, things like antibiotics, and hormones being pumped into the cows. As a result, the milk quality always suffers, the mozzarella couldn't stretch, it's not enough calcium, not enough nutrients in the milk. So, I gave up that whole idea and was still working for Google."
"So, we bootstrapped initially, brought in some scientists, did a lot of research, and filed our first patent. The technology requires getting memory cells and culturing the cells to express full-function milk, all 2,000 different ingredients in milk. We had our early success and quickly brought this technology to some of the biggest dairy companies in the world, folks like Fonterra and Abbott, and told them, "Hey, we can make milk. What do you think?"
"Very quickly they came back with feedback saying, "Well, great that you can make milk, but milk is $2 a gallon. I don't think you can get to the price point anytime soon. You should really be focused on high-value ingredients that are found in milk." So they gave us a list of half a dozen proteins and ingredients that we should look at, and at the top of the list is lactoferrin because of all these great benefits and the high price point it is today. You guys should be focused on the high-value ingredients that are low in supply across the market so you can address this accessibility problem and not try to reproduce a commodity like milk. So that's how we started and where we are today. We just got our FDA Self GRAS status in November last year, so we've started to commercialize this lactoferrin."
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