Living microorganisms can now be manipulated using recombinant DNA technology to be efficient biocatalysts in a variety of applications such as industrial chemical synthesis, environmental biosensors, components of bioelectronic devices, etc. They have unique capabilities to carry out vast arrays of complex oxidation or reduction reactions as well as of manipulating the molecular structure of substances of interest. Compared to chemical catalysts, microorganisms can achieve these complex chemistries with a smaller energy and carbon footprint, while using less reactants and producing fewer undesirable by-products.  However, living cells as biocatalysts are seldom available as "off-the-shelf" reagents. Instead, they require extensive biotechnology facilities and experienced personnel to cultivate and maintain them. Furthermore, they are traditionally deployed in dilute, water-based suspensions that are difficult to integrate with many of the non-aqueous typically used in chemical processing.  The limitations arising from this mode of deployment are short active half-life, mass transfer limitations, operational complexity, and high costs when compared to functionally equivalent chemical catalysts. These factors have precluded their effective utilization in many possible applications.

What is needed is an enabling, inexpensive, catalyst manufacturing technology so that living microorganisms can be stabilized and used more efficiently, with minimal mass transfer limitations and reducing the complexity and specialization level required for their effective deployment. To expand the current uses of whole-cells as biocatalysts, they must be made more robust, highly reactive to increase process intensity, have comparable half-lives as chemical catalysts, and be capable of storage and shipping without loss of activity so that the site of biocatalyst manufacturing (growing the microorganisms) can be separated from the site of use in chemical processes.

Industrial coating and printing technology offers the possibility of becoming a powerful enabling technology to expand the uses of engineered microorganisms as biocatalysts.  This possibility is realized in the technology developed by BioCee's co-founder Dr. Michael Flickinger and his team since the mid 1990s.  This approach permits to embed microorganisms in thin, self-adhesive, nano-structured latex coatings. These coatings allow a 500- to 1000-fold concentration of the biocatalyst and enable dramatic process intensification.  The coatings are only 30-100µm thick with the ability to engineer their porosity, enhancing mass transfer to allow all microorganisms to contribute to the process. This technology has been patented (Patent US07132247) by the University of Minnesota, which has granted BioCee the exclusive rights to this patent.