In this instalment of The Cell Base's ‘Start-up Spotlight,’ we speak with Mohammad Khalil El Hajj (pictured below), CEO of UK-based Bright Biotech, a company pioneering the use of chloroplasts to express high amounts of proteins in plants. This innovative technology has the potential to transform plant-based protein production and offers a sustainable solution for the future of food.
Can you tell us about Bright Biotech’s mission and how it aligns with your vision for the future of sustainable food production?
Bright Biotech’s mission is to help cultivated meat producers and life sciences innovators create safer, more sustainable, and affordable products by providing the highest quality, eco-friendly and scalable growth factors. This aligns with our broader vision of revolutionising protein production through our Bright chloroplast technology, empowering innovation and driving a sustainable, brighter future. By enabling cost-effective and scalable production of essential proteins, we are contributing to a food system that reduces reliance on traditional animal agriculture and fermentation-based biomanufacturing.
What makes your plant-based protein technology unique in the cellular agriculture space?
For cellular agriculture to achieve price parity with conventional meat, growth factors must be produced at low cost and large scale. Our chloroplast-based expression system meets these needs by offering a sustainable, scalable alternative to traditional fermentation-based growth factor production. With high yields and a low resource footprint, our platform ensures that cultivated meat producers can scale efficiently, overcoming one of the biggest cost barriers in the industry.
How does the process of transforming chloroplasts into bioreactors work, and what advantages does this offer over other biotechnological methods?
Our chloroplast transformation process is a precisely controlled method that leverages the unique properties of plant chloroplasts to achieve high-yield, scalable and biosafe protein production. Compared to other biotechnological approaches, such as microbial fermentation (bacteria/yeast), mammalian cell culture and nuclear plant transformation, our platform offers distinct advantages in efficiency, stability and cost-effectiveness.
How chloroplast transformation works
Precise gene targeting with homologous recombination.
The DNA we introduce includes guiding sequences (called homologous arms) that match specific locations in the chloroplast genome.
When the plant’s natural repair system detects this new DNA, it precisely integrates it at the intended spot, ensuring reliable expression.
Using biolistics for DNA delivery.
We coat microscopic gold particles with the target DNA and delivered into plant cells using a biolistic system.
Once inside, the DNA naturally finds its way to the chloroplasts and integrates through the plant’s own mechanisms (homologous recombination).
Selecting successfully modified plants.
Only plant cells that have successfully incorporated the new gene continue to grow, using a marker system that allows us to easily identify them.
These transformed cells develop into full plants in a controlled environment.
Ensuring safety and containment.
Unlike traditional GMOs, chloroplast DNA is inherited only through the mother plant, meaning it does not spread through pollen.
This ensures tight genetic containment, eliminating concerns about cross-pollination with other crops.
What are the distinct advantages of chloroplast transformation?
1. Superior yield and genetic stability
Chloroplast bioreactors: Achieve up to 5g of recombinant protein per kg of leaf biomass, one of the highest yields among plant-based expression systems.
Microbial fermentation (bacteria/yeast): Often produces lower yields, requiring expensive fermentation tanks and media.
Mammalian cell culture: High-cost production with stringent growth conditions, slow scalability and contamination risks.
Nuclear plant transformation: Prone to gene silencing and unpredictable expression due to random gene insertion.
2. Cost-effective and scalable production
Chloroplast bioreactors: Seed-based expansion enables rapid, large-scale production at a low cost.
Microbial fermentation and mammalian cell culture: Require controlled bioreactors, expensive growth media, and complex purification steps.
Nuclear plant transformation: Low expression levels make it inefficient for commercial-scale production.
3. High containment and regulatory advantage
Chloroplast bioreactors: Chloroplast DNA is inherited only through the mother plant, meaning it does not spread through pollen. This ensures genetic containment, addressing GMO-related regulatory concerns.
Microbial fermentation and mammalian cell culture: Risk of contamination with endotoxins, prions or viral particles.
Nuclear plant transformation: Gene escape via pollen can cause regulatory and environmental concerns.
By combining high yield, genetic stability, cost efficiency and biosafety, our chloroplast-based platform stands out as a transformative approach for producing recombinant proteins at scale.
Can you share any insights into your debut products and how they contribute to the growing trend of plant-based food innovation?
Our debut products are TGF-β3 and FGF2, These essential proteins play a crucial role in cell differentiation, proliferation, and tissue development, forming the foundation of cellular agriculture.
Growth factors represent one of the most significant cost bottlenecks in cultivated meat production, often accounting for a large percentage of the final product price due to their expensive manufacturing processes.
Traditionally, these proteins are produced using microbial fermentation (eg. E. coli, yeast), which involves complex purification to remove endotoxins or mammalian cell culture, which is costly and dependent on expensive growth media.
Our molecular farming platform offers a revolutionary alternative that enables:
Affordable production – Our method significantly reduces production costs, making cultivated meat more economically viable.
Animal-free production – Unlike conventional production, which may involve fetal bovine serum (FBS), our proteins are ethically produced with no animal components.
Scalable and sustainable production – Using plant chloroplasts as bioreactors allows for large-scale protein production without the need for costly bioreactors or fermentation tanks.
How does Bright Biotech see its technology contributing to both cellular agriculture and regenerative medicine?
At Bright Biotech, we see molecular farming as a game-changer, redefining how we produce essential biomolecules across food, medicine, and beyond. Our chloroplast-based expression system isn’t just an alternative to conventional protein production—it’s a foundational platform for the future bioeconomy, enabling scalable, sustainable, and cost-effective solutions for industries that depend on high-value proteins.
Cultivated meat
Cultivated meat has the potential to transform our food system – delivering real meat without industrial farming. However, one major hurdle remains: the high cost and limited supply of growth factors, which are essential for cell growth but currently one of the most expensive components of cell culture media.
At Bright Biotech, we eliminate this bottleneck with our high-yield, seed-amplified approach, enabling the production of these proteins at scale and at a lower cost of traditional methods. By making growth factors affordable, accessible and scalable, we help drive the commercial viability of cultivated meat, bringing it closer to mass-market adoption.
Regenerative medicine
The promise of regenerative medicine is extraordinary, using the body’s own biology to heal wounds, regenerate tissues and restore function. But one critical issue is stalling progress: the prohibitive cost of growth factors.
Right now, many labs can’t afford the proteins they need to test their hypotheses, validate their research and push medical innovation forward. Scientists working on groundbreaking therapies are blocked before they even begin because the essential ingredients for their work are simply too expensive. This stifles innovation and delays life-changing treatments from ever reaching patients.
Bright Biotech’s plant-based production system removes this bottleneck, creating a scalable and cost-effective supply of growth factors that makes experimentation, discovery and progress possible again. By reducing costs, we empower researchers to explore new frontiers in medicine, accelerating breakthroughs in cell therapies, wound healing and tissue engineering.
What challenges have you faced as a start-up in this innovative space, and how have you overcome them?
The cultivated meat industry was expected to grow quickly, but its progress has been slower than anticipated due to regulatory challenges, high costs and scaling difficulties. While cellular agriculture is still a promising solution for sustainable protein production, it is developing gradually.
To adapt, we stay closely connected with industry players, refining our approach for long-term success. Instead of waiting for cultivated meat to take off, we are expanding into other markets where our plant-made growth factors can make an immediate impact. Our chloroplast-based technology has the potential to benefit multiple industries, and we are focusing on areas like life sciences and personal care, where we can create value right now.
How do you ensure sustainability is embedded into your processes, from technology development to product production?
Sustainability is core to Bright Biotech’s platform:
Low resource consumption: Our plants use light, water, CO₂ and minimal nutrients compared to energy-intensive microbial fermentation.
Reduced emissions: We eliminate the need for sterile bioreactors, lowering energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Scalability without continuous modification: Our seed-based system allows for continuous expansion without reintroducing genetic material in each cycle.
Regulatory and biosafety measures: Our plants do not spread transgenes through pollen, ensuring environmental safety.
What excites you most about the future of cultivated meat and their potential impact on the food industry?
A game-changer for the environment: Traditional livestock farming is one of the biggest contributors to deforestation, water depletion, and greenhouse gas emissions. Cultivated meat offers a way to produce high-quality protein with a fraction of the environmental footprint, helping to combat climate change while preserving biodiversity.
Safer, more secure food supply: By moving meat production from farms to controlled environments, we can eliminate many risks associated with conventional agriculture, including zoonotic disease outbreaks and antibiotic resistance. This not only makes our food safer but also strengthens global food security.
Scalability and innovation: Advances in cellular agriculture are constantly improving efficiency, lowering costs, and expanding product possibilities. As the technology matures, cultivated meat could become widely accessible, offering consumers an ethical and sustainable alternative without compromising on taste or nutrition.
As a start-up, what advice would you give to others entering the cultivated food space, particularly those focusing on sustainability and scalability?
Understand market needs: It’s not enough to develop a novel platform; aligning with industry needs ensures commercial success.
Design for scalability from the start: Prioritise processes that reduce costs and allow seamless expansion.
Engage with regulatory bodies early: Ensuring compliance is key to accelerating market entry.
Build strategic partnerships: Collaboration with industry can drive adoption and accelerate commercialisation.
Educate the public: Consumer and industry awareness of cellular agriculture benefits is essential for adoption.
