Artificial Fat | “广以范”初创公司完成预种子轮投资
全球植物肉和巧克力市场正在加速扩大，作为植物肉产品升级的关键一步，人造脂肪备受关注。日前，人造脂肪公司「Yali Bio雅礼生物」完成了数百万美元的预种子轮融资。投资方包括Uphonest Capital，3KVC 以及Quiet Capita。该公司总部设在硅谷（美国旧金山），广东以色列理工学院徐鹏博士为该公司联合创始人兼首席科学顾问。
油脂广泛应用于食品营养、医药保健、美容护肤、动物饲料以及农业环保等领域。动物油脂决定了大多数美食细腻丰富的口感，比如西班牙火腿、北京烤鸭、神户牛排和法国鹅肝等，油脂对这些美食的风味及口感起到了不可替代的作用。各种植物果实中的油脂广泛用于食品、糖果、巧克力点心和美容护肤等领域。临床测试及运动医学表明，人体健康的油脂的摄取，尤其是多不饱和脂肪酸中ω-3与ω-6组分的比例，与抗炎、皮肤健康、增肌减肥和免疫力等机体功能直接相关。
长期以来，人类获取蛋白及脂肪的方式是动物养殖或者油料作物开发。在资源恶性开发、气候变化以及生态多样性丧失的背景下，这些获取蛋白和油脂方式造成了沉重的资源与环境负担，人类亟需寻求新的途径来获取蛋白与油脂。
微生物发酵不依赖于耕地和环境气候，能够高效转化农业可再生资源（比如生物质纤维素等原材料），是现代生物制造“皇冠上的明珠”。它能够极大提高碳源的转化率以及蛋白的分泌效率，可望解决蛋白以及油脂供应的难题，利用微生物细胞工厂生产植物肉及可替代性油脂将会有广阔的空间和商机。
Yali Bio雅礼生物于今年3月成立于硅谷，目前的主营业务是利用合成生物学技术，替代动物脂肪或者植物脂肪，为消费者提供营养健康的油脂和植物肉。合成生物学有一定的技术壁垒，Yali Bio雅礼生物目前的产品已经过GRAS认证，这是美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）针对化学物质或食品添加物的分类，证明产品是安全的。雅礼生物已汇聚了一批优秀的科学工作者和技术大伽，公司将入驻旧金山湾区Illumina的技术加速器（Illumina为下一代基因测序的头部公司），目前正积极探索在深圳建立研发中心的可行性。
雅礼正好是产油酵母拉丁名Yarrowia lipolytica的首字母缩写（Yali），雅者，正也；礼者，守规矩，尚信义；这也是雅礼生物科技创立者的初衷。“中华民族为礼仪之邦，我们尚礼而崇文。”雅礼生物希望创立一个尊重科学，沿循市场规律，服务于大众健康并致力于解决全球经济可持续性发展的公司。
广东以色列理工学院开设生物技术与食品工程、化学工程、材料科学与工程等专业，承载着以色列优良的创新基因，这也是雅礼创立人之一徐鹏博士加入广东以色列理工学院的原因。他说：“广以毗邻大湾区，学校给学生开设了创业课，正在筹设技术孵化器，我们希望看到更多的科技创新从广以走出去。”
联合创始人兼首席科学顾问徐鹏是伦斯勒理工学院化学与生物工程博士、麻省理工学院博士后，2016-2020年在美国马里兰大学担任助理教授（独立PI），目前是广东以色列理工学院化学工程系副教授。他曾获得2018年“盖茨美琳达基金会奖”，2020年“生物工程与生物技术王义翘教授奖”（Biotechnology & Bioengineering Daniel IC Wang Award）和2021年“生化工程杰出青年学者奖”（Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award）等国际奖项，研究领域包括代谢工程、合成生物学、智能控制、生物分子绿色制造和生化工程等。
The world has seen an increased craving for plant-alternative fats with both environmental and health benefits. Artificial fat draws significant attention as it is a critical component in the development of plant-based meat, dairy or confectionery products. Recently, an artificial fat developing company (YaliBio) has received millions of dollars investment from Uphonest Capital, 3KVC and Quiet Capita in pre-seed stage funding. Its head quarter is based in Silicon Valley (San Francisco), with Prof. Peng Xu from Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) as co-founder and the chief scientific advisor.
Functional fat is widely used in many areas, such as food nutrition, health care, skin care, and agriculture and environmental protection, etc. Animal structuring fat determines the smooth, rich flavor and mouthful tasting of most food, and it also plays an unreplaceable role in many famous cuisines such as Spanish ham, Peking roasted duck, Kobe steak and French foie gras. Plant oils extracted from fruit bodies or kernels are widely used on the daily basis, including food, candy, chocolate and personal care industry. Clinical tests and sports medicine demonstrate that healthy fat diet, especially balance between ω-3 and ω-6, is closely related to body and mental functions such as anti-inflammatory, skin health, lean muscle gain, innate immunity and cognitive functions.
In our human history, we acquire almost all our proteins or fats from animal farming or oil crops (palm oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil etc). In facing of overexploitations of natural resources, climate change and loss of ecological diversity, our traditional way of acquiring proteins and fats has severely burdened our environment and resources. There is a pressing need to seek innovative solutions to overcome these limitations.
Microbial fermentation, which is less dependent on farming or climate and can achieve high conversion rate for agricultural and renewable feedstock (such as cellulose biomass), has become ‘the jewel in the crown’ of advance biomanufacturing. It may potentially solve the protein and lipid supply dilemma due to its superior carbon assimilation efficiency and protein secretion capability. Harnessing microbial cell factories to produce plant-based meat or alternative lipids represents an untapped space and opportunity to revolutionize and upgrade our food system.
YaliBio was founded in Silicon Valley in March this year, current main business is to use synthetic biotechnology to substitute animal or plant-based fat, and provide customers with healthy and high-quality meat and fats. Synthetic biology has certain technical barriers, recent products from YaliBio have secured GRAS certification, which is the classification of chemical substances or food additives regulated by US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), proving that the products are safe. YaliBio has assembled an efficient team consisting of multifaceted talents and technical gurus. YaliBio will be inducted to the Illumina accelerator in the Bay area this September, and will explore the opportunity to open its R&D site in Shenzhen, China.
‘Yali’ (translated to ‘雅礼’ in Chinese), the company name, is the acronym of Yarrowia lipolytica, the Latin name of the oleaginous yeast. Those who are elegant (the meaning of ‘雅’) are righteous (雅者，正也); those who are courteous (the meaning of ‘礼’), obey the rules and uphold faith (礼者，守规矩，尚信义). This is also the original intention of the founders of YaliBio. The Chinese nation is a nation of etiquette, for thousand years of history, we respect rules and set a solid footing to seek truth. YaliBio hopes to create a company that respects science, follows market rules, creates customer values, serves public health and work diligently to solve the sustainable development of global economy.
In GTIIT, there are majors in Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Material Science and Engineering, which inherits the extraordinary innovative genes from Israel. This is the reason why Dr. Peng Xu, one of the founders of YaliBio, joined the GTIIT. "GT campus is neighboring to the Greater Bay area of Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau, we have entrepreneurship class and are ready to operate the on-campus tech incubator, we hope to see more startup companies spined off from GTIIT", said by Dr. Xu.
Yulin Lu, the founder and CEO of YaliBio, obtained PhD from Purdue University and has been engaged in R&D, engineering and industrialization in US in the past ten years. From 2015 to 2020, he worked as the senior engineering director of Impossible Foods, a world-leading plant-based meat company in US, to develop plant-based artificial meat and eggs.
Peng Xu, co-founder and the chief scientific advisor of YaliBio, obtained his PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, completed his postdoc training in the Stephanopoulos lab at MIT, was an Assistant Professor (independent PI) at University of Maryland from 2106 to 2020, and he is currently an associate professor of Chemical Engineering at GTIIT. He has received the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Award, Biotechnology & Bioengineering Daniel IC Wang Award and Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award. His research fields include metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, intelligent control, green manufacturing and biochemical engineering et al.
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文/图：徐鹏、GTIIT传媒与公共事务部
Text/Photos: Xu Peng, GTIIT News & Public Affairs