High-Throughput Screening to Accelerate Microalgae-Based Phycochemical Production

Microalgae biotechnologies tap into the huge energy resource of the sun, absorb CO2, and are being developed to provide economic solar-driven solutions spanning the production of phytochemicals, foods, biopolymers, renewable fuels and services delivering clean water and bioremediation capabilities. Further, microalgae open up a suite of high-value opportunities in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical sectors (small molecules and recombinant proteins). Efficient photosynthetic biomass production (upstream processing) represents the first step of the microbiological manufacturing process and requires a systematic optimisation approach to improve resource use efficiency (light, nutrients, CO2) for individual production strains and growth systems. This chapter looks at general challenges and opportunities in the field of microalgal biotechnology before reviewing how high-throughput screening (HTS) methods can be implemented to improve the understanding and control of critical process parameters. Innovation pathways (miniaturisation, automation), latest advances and bottlenecks (including experimental design and data management), and an outlook of microalgae cell-based HTS assays are discussed for their potential to accelerate the development of new production species and cell lines for the production of molecules of added value. Based on specific application examples for the optimisation of abiotic growth factors, the possibilities of this technology will be presented. HTS data can help to de-risk production scale-up and assist technoeconomic process modelling to accelerate microalgae systems development, technology translation, and commercialisation. Furthermore, HTS can be a useful tool to determine social and environmental impacts of product-specific production processes and help to build resource databases required for technology integration into a circular economy.