At the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), researchers are combining biology, automation, and machine learning to transform the speed and scale of research and product development.
Today, GIFS’ engineering biology platform, or biofoundry, is the only one of its kind in Canada dedicated to agriculture and food innovation.
Dr. Benjamin Scott (PhD), Engineering Biology and Automation Platform Lead at GIFS, is at the centre of the action, overseeing a comprehensive suite of world-class technologies and a multidisciplinary team.
Their goal is to drive innovation by improving biological processes — for example, by modifying an enzyme so it’s better suited for a specific application or by reengineering the biochemical pathways of microorganisms to enhance the production of valuable metabolites, such as oils and nutraceuticals.
“My favourite definition for engineering biology is using biology to build useful products,” Scott told an audience at a GIFS-hosted seminar in September 2025.
It’s a simple explanation for complex work in which robotics, high-throughput screening, and advanced analytics are used to design and test biological systems at a massive scale.
Scott’s foundation in engineering biology was established at the University of Toronto, where he earned a PhD, and in subsequent roles at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Concordia Genome Foundry.
Since joining GIFS in 2023, he’s worked closely with GIFS’ leadership team and Dr. Megha Bajaj (PhD), Engineering Biology Business Lead, to hire a team, select equipment, and oversee extensive facility renovations.
They’ve also connected with stakeholders across Canada and the world, contributing to conversations within conferences, panels, and publications exploring diverse topics, including how Canadian engineering biology and biomanufacturing can strengthen defence and supply chain security.
After several years of planning and building, the engineering biology team at GIFS is now providing researchers and organizations with a range of world-class technical services spanning DNA assembly, strain engineering, cell growth and phenotyping, proteomics, and metabolomics.
These services are enabled by integrated systems that help researchers rapidly iterate through the design-build-test-learn cycle — moving from concept to prototype faster than ever before.
“Your build and test capacity must match what you can do in design and learn …” Scott told seminar attendees. “That’s where automation really starts to come in handy.”
Dr. Benjamin Scott (PhD), Engineering Biology and Automation Platform Lead at GIFS, discussed his team’s work during a GIFS-hosted seminar in fall 2025.
Innovation through automation
At the seminar, Scott highlighted the cutting-edge technologies within GIFS’ facility.
These include advanced robotics for liquid handling, colony picking, and DNA assembly, as well as bioreactors for precision fermentation and the latest HPLC and mass spectrometry systems.
These significant capital investments — made possible through more than $9 million in funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Prairies Economic Development Canada, the Agriculture Development Fund (Ministry of Agriculture), and Innovation Saskatchewan — enable miniaturized, high-throughput workflows that would be impossible to perform manually.
For example, GIFS’ Echo liquid handling system uses sound waves to transfer nanoliter droplets with remarkable precision. Nearby, a RapidPick MP automated colony picker can select up to 2,400 colonies per hour with desired traits from complex mixtures.
Meanwhile, GIFS’ Vantage platform, equipped with MagPip technology, can pipette an entire 384-well plate in just 12 seconds. Paired with custom-integrated equipment, it supports fully automated processes for culturing and sampling cells, measuring both growth and fluorescence.
It’s the combination of this equipment with a collaborative team of automation engineers, bioinformaticians, and molecular biologists that makes innovation possible.
“High-quality equipment needs high-quality people … we cannot plug in this equipment and push a button,” said Scott.
Designing enzymes to unlock soil phosphorus
In his presentation, Scott discussed an ongoing Homeworld-funded project at GIFS exploring phytase enzymes and phosphorus fertilizer efficiency.
Phosphorus, an essential nutrient for crop growth, is widely abundant in soils, but it’s commonly “locked” in a molecule called phytate — unusable by plants without enzymatic help.
“Life tends to find a way, and there’s a family of enzymes called phytases that can release phosphate from phytate to make it biologically available,” Scott explained.
“If we can create a phosphate-releasing enzyme, maybe we can turn this into a product that makes this bioavailable to plants and reduce the need for (traditional) fertilizer.”
Scott’s team used AI-driven protein design to generate thousands of novel phytases, then leveraged the latest equipment and multidisciplinary expertise to test them across relevant conditions.
A system for this scale of screening didn’t exist, so significant method development and co-ordination — spanning microbiology, biochemistry, analytical chemistry, and automation — were required.
Now Scott’s team routinely conducts high-throughput DNA assembly and strain construction and rapidly measures enzyme function at a pace that was previously impossible. The resulting large, high-quality datasets will guide future AI protein designs to accelerate the development of next-generation biofertilizers.
It’s a glimpse at the kind of innovation that’s possible.
Scott sees significant opportunities for GIFS’ engineering biology platform to help design and build microbes, proteins, enzymes, and small molecules for a wide range of agriculture and food uses — everything from improved crop varieties and protein sources to new inputs, novel ingredients, and more.
“The potential impact we can have here is enormous … It really comes down to what is the end product? What are people going to use in their day-to-day lives?” said Scott.
“That can look like a plant. It can look like a microbe. It can look like a protein enzyme, small molecule …. I really want to drive home just all the different ways that engineering biology can impact food security.”
Learn more about engineering biology at GIFS, connect with our team, and request a service and gifs.ca/technical-services.
Biomanufacturing at GIFS: GIFS is home to Canada’s only biomanufacturing program dedicated to advancing innovative and sustainable agriculture and food. Combining the strengths of GIFS’ engineering biology, sequencing, data management, analytics, and cell biology technologies, our Biomanufacturing Program will help partners to rapidly scale the research and development of new products. Learn more at gifs.ca/programs/biomanufacturing.