Green Education - Why We Miss Innovations


Personal Note From Patrick, The Editor

Hi Reader, last week I posted about an essential step to make your lab greener: Quantification.

I thought this post might be of interest to you - also because I share some of my experience in the comments.

And while we often overlook the benefits of apparently trivial actions like quantification, the same can be said about innovations.

A good example is trypsin alternatives — let me explain the issue:


Today's Lesson: Trypsin Alternatives

How enzymes can be made more sustainable.


Number Of The Day

According to several sources such as Market Research Intellect or Valuates Reports, the animal-free trypsin market is valued at $80–150 million in 2024. That’s quite a sum and potentially bigger than numbers on traditional animal-based trypsin. With an annual growth rate of 5–8.5%, this topic is becoming increasingly relevant. What’s driving this growth, and will it actually benefit the environment? Let’s take a closer look.

80 Million


Exploring Trypsin Alternatives

We all await more green innovations. However, they’re sometimes already available.


We just have not heard about them... But why?

Two reasons:

  1. Poor visibility – Not every sustainable product is sufficiently advertised.
  2. Hidden benefits – Sometimes the advantage is there, but not obvious at first glance.

Trypsin alternatives might suffer from both but while we can do little about A), let's find out how to understand and overcome B).

Why, How, and When Trypsin?

Trypsin is best known in cell culture for detaching adherent cells.
But it’s also used to digest proteins and peptides for MS analysis, or in recombinant insulin manufacturing to convert proinsulin into active insulin.

Since cell detachment is critical in processes like vaccine production — and due to its role in insulin manufacturing, we see robust demand from the growing pharmaceutical industry.

However, behind the scenes, it comes with a few concerns:

  • It's traditionally extracted from the pancreas of pigs or cows, requiring their slaughter.
  • Quality can vary since it comes from living animals.
  • It carries risks of contamination (viruses, prions), which is especially critical in stem cell or pharmaceutical applications.

In short: effective, yes — but it comes with ethical and scientific challenges.

The Innovation

Recombinant trypsin, produced without animals using engineered microbes, could be the solution.


Most commonly, these alternatives are made by fermentation in Pichia pastoris (a type of yeast) grown in bioreactors or from bacteria such as E.coli. Trypsin is then isolated, purified, and stabilized.

For example, TrypLE™ functions just like trypsin. However, it is stable at room temperature (up to 24 months), gentler, and doesn’t require inhibitors for inactivation (dilution suffices).

Other alternatives, like r-Ac-trypsin (acetylated recombinant trypsin), are optimized for proteomics: they offer higher activity, more stability, and are less prone to autolysis.

The Sustainability Angle

These products offer several clear advantages:

  • No animal use → relies on microbes instead of slaughtered animals
  • No contamination risk → fewer failed batches and less repetition
  • More consistent activity and less autolysis → better reproducibility
  • Room-temperature stability → reduces energy demand for cooling
  • Inactivation by dilution → no need for added inhibitors

All of this points to less waste and potentially fewer resources used downstream.

The Sustainability Challenge

However, let's not jump to conclusions. A few sustainability considerations remain:

  • Recombinant production also consumes energy and chemicals — fermenters, purification steps, sterilization. It’s not footprint-free.
  • Animal-based trypsin often comes from meat industry by-products. Using it doesn’t necessarily increase animal harm.
  • Its production sites may be centralized (e.g., in the US), leading to longer transportation routes and associated emissions.

Applying The Knowledge

So, is recombinant trypsin truly more sustainable?

We don't know — because there are no LCAs (life cycle assessments) or carbon footprint analyses available.

But there may be sustainability advantages beyond the environmental:

  • Scientifically more sustainable: better reproducibility, less contamination, and less auto-degradation
  • Operationally more sustainable: easier to store and use, saving time and energy

For non-critical tasks like routine cell detachment, switching should be low risk.

For more sensitive processes, switching might require validation, but could improve efficiency or standardization in digestion workflows – aligning better with GMP standards.

Key Takeaway: We need to investigate sustainability claims — not all are accurate but sometimes, the real benefits are hiding where marketers don’t even look.

Upcoming Lesson:

Carbon Footprint of Imprecise Science


How We Feel Today


References

Manira, M. et al., Comparison of the effects between animal-derived trypsin and recombinant trypsin on human skin cells proliferation, gene and protein expression. Cell and Tissue Banking, 2014, 15(1), 41–49. doi:10.1007/s10561-013-9368-y

Wu, F. et al., Recombinant acetylated trypsin demonstrates superior stability and higher activity than commercial products in quantitative proteomics studies. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 2016. doi:10.1002/rcm.7535

Karbalaei, M. et al., Pichia pastoris: A highly successful expression system for optimal synthesis of heterologous proteins. Journal of Cellular Physiology, 2020. doi:10.1002/jcp.29583

Li, C. et al., Development of an effective method for purifying trypsin using a recombinant inhibitor. Protein Expression and Purification, 2025, 225, 106597. doi:10.1016/j.pep.2024.106597


If you have a wish or a question, feel free to reply to this Email.

Otherwise, wish you a beautiful week!
See you again on the 24th : )

Find the previous lesson click - here -


Edited by Patrick Penndorf
Connection@ReAdvance.com
Lutherstraße 159, 07743, Jena, Thuringia, Germany
Data Protection & Impressum

If you think we do a bad job: Unsubscribe

ReAdvance

Read more from ReAdvance

Personal Note From Patrick, The Editor Hi Reader, I’ve heard from many scientists that teaching is the most fulfilling work they’ve ever done. Teaching students and new colleagues is a powerful tool that is all too often overlooked. Of note, we previously talked about how to convince others, including some common mistakes to avoid. Therefore, we will explore how to effectively embed sustainability in your teaching in today's lesson: Today's Lesson: A Strategy For Your Teaching How we can...

Personal Note From Patrick, The Editor Hello Reader, I hope you have read some interesting studies lately. Why? Because staying up to date on research can reduce our footprints! Farley et al. have published a preprint in which they tried to estimate the carbon footprint of science that fails to do that… Their result: about 38 tons of CO2e per study. But is that realistic? Today's Lesson: The Footprint of Science Discussing the impact of unnecessary studies Number Of The Day According to...

Personal Note From Patrick, The Editor Hi Reader, hope you are doing well! In a previous lesson, we looked at how to account for the energy consumption of your lab equipment. However, there are three reasons why we’re interested in assessing the exact energy use of a specific piece of equipment. Therefore, today we’ll cover what these are and how you can successfully measure them without becoming too technical: Today's Lesson: Measuring Energy Consumption How to quantify electricity use...