“Chymosin is a protein that coagulates milk; thanks to its action, the milk separates into two phases: whey and a curd, which is then used in the cheese-making process. This is a critical step,” explains Nicolás Tambucho, who holds a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology.
The chymosin used to produce Uruguayan cheeses is imported. In 2012, chymosin worth US$500,000 was imported, according to Penta Transaction, a website specializing in import and export statistics. Tambucho and his thesis partners, Florencia Arezo and Gastón Barranquet, succeeded in creating a bacterial strain capable of producing chymosin in Uruguay.
“For our thesis, we set out to express the protein in bacteria so that it could be produced domestically,” explains Arezo. “The idea was to create a product identical to the imported one. We succeeded in expressing it, although we don’t have a vial of a product identical to the commercial one because thesis projects are limited to four months, and a development project like that takes at least one or two years.”
The initiative came from Jucar, a company that sells supplies for dairy production and the dairy industry, which raised the issue with the academic coordinators of the bachelor's degree program.
The chymosin project was the second to be carried out with the participation of both parties. Previously, Jucar had already raised with Universidad ORT Uruguay need to change the storage conditions for one of the enzymes it markets, which, among other things, helps give cheeses and yogurts their characteristic flavor and texture.
That culture was stored in a dehydrated form, but, as the company pointed out, this caused productivity issues. The challenge, then, was to develop a frozen version.
“What I did was adapt this product—a starter culture used in the dairy industry, particularly in cheese and yogurt production—and optimize its storage conditions,” explains Lucía Zeballos, the author of the study.
“To that end, I adapted the microorganisms and tested different conditions to see how they reacted. That’s how we found that the microorganisms survived and remained active. Now the production protocol is ready,” he adds.
According to Zeballos, his project was smaller in scale than the one developed by Tambucho, Arezo, and Barranquet. “It’s great that the company recognized that we’re qualified and had enough confidence in us to entrust us with a more significant project,” he says.
“The fact that the thesis addressed a real-world problem was one of the things that motivated me the most, because that’s the whole point of biotechnology: research shouldn’t just sit on a library CD; it should be carried out and put into practice, have industrial applications, and allow you to make the most of what you’ve done.”