The Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) has brought in an experienced bioprocessing specialist to its FlexBio facility, adding to the range of expertise on offer to support biotechnology companies and projects to scale up to industrial size.     

Dr Sheena Fraser joins the innovation centre from Roslin Technologies where, as senior vice president of product development, she was a driving force behind its cultivated – or lab-grown – meat growth media and bioprocess development activities over the last 18 months.

Before moving to Scotland, Sheena was based in South Africa and held several roles in biotechnology and life sciences. In 2020 she was appointed chief scientific officer for Mogale Meat Company (now WildBio), a startup developing cultivated meat from wildlife species – an emerging field that uses cell culture to produce more meat with less livestock. Concurrently, she served as chief operations officer for MeatOurFuture, an organisation accelerating the cellular agriculture sector in Africa, and team credited with delivering the continent’s first cell-cultivated meat prototype.

Underpinning her knowledge of cellular agriculture and stem cell cultivation, Sheena has over two decades of experience in microbial and mammalian cell bioprocess innovation, supporting new product development from concept to manufacturing and commercialisation.

At IBioIC’s FlexBio – a facility hosted at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, which focuses on de-risking the scale-up of upstream and downstream bioprocesses – Sheena will support the innovation centre’s partners and members across several projects and sectors. Many bio-based products fail to make it to market because of the challenges associated with transferring laboratory-based science to an industry-ready process.

As upstream bioprocess manager, Sheena will also be responsible for work involving the centre’s new £847,000, 300-litre fermenter which is expected to become operational early next year.

A former IBioIC-funded master’s and PhD student, Luke Johnston, will also be joining the team as senior fermentation scientist, adding further capacity to the FlexBio facility. During his MSc, Luke completed a placement at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, a global manufacturer of biologics, vaccines and advanced therapies.

Mark Bustard, CEO of IBioIC, said: “Sheena is an excellent addition to the team at FlexBio and brings the type of expertise we can offer to a whole new level. She has vast industry experience dealing with projects at various scales, with different types of cells and for a range of applications, which will no doubt be transferrable to all kinds of work we are doing to help scale up the bioeconomy. As well as this, she has an established network we can connect with, and even refer our members to for extra support when required.

“We are equally pleased to welcome Luke back to IBioIC, having helped him kickstart his career through university and placements. Luke’s experience is a great example of the success of our funded study programmes.”

Dr Sheena Fraser added: “Joining FlexBio is a great opportunity to help accelerate the growth of Scotland’s bioeconomy, working with a range of organisations to scale up different bio-based processes. While my most recent efforts have focused on cultivated meat, the principles of scaling up mammalian cells, fungi and bacteria, using techniques such as fermentation, can apply to a whole range of sectors to make manufacturing more sustainable. I’m looking forward to playing a small part in helping these businesses to take ideas to the next level.”