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.

Further reading:

Congratulations | Dr. Peng Xu in GTIIT is awarded the 2021 Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award

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Text/Photos: Xu Peng, GTIIT News & Public Affairs