The microbial communities inhabiting animals are exceptionally diverse and complex. At Native, we use a range of proprietary and advanced technology methods to decipher these animal associated microbial ecosystems. This enables our team to build and deliver microbial solutions to customers that are measurable, sustainable, and beneficial.
Decode the Interactions
Microbial communities are foundational to our world, yet exceedingly diverse and complex. While modern methods for analyzing and interpreting these complex ecosystems build on the tools available to microbiologists a decade ago, they do not enable a truly functional understanding of the role of individual strains in an environment. These methods rely upon a statistical measurement coupled to fixed assumptions around metabolism and population constants that often result in neither an optimal, nor reliable, product target.
The Native Microbials Technology Platform transforms the analysis of microbial communities with a unique, functionally descriptive approach – the result is not only a more rational and direct analysis of what takes place in these complex microbial ecosystems, but more importantly, the identification of microbial strains that are the most efficacious for desired mechanisms of commercial, health, environmental, and societal value.
Biomass
Microbial populations and systems are not static—they are dynamic and constantly responding to changes in their environment. The number of cells in a microbial community can change significantly over time for any multitude of reasons within different microbe groups (e.g. bacterial, fungal, viral), and most importantly in ways that can have dramatic impacts on the analysis and interpretation of these microbial ecosystems. Measuring the absolute number of cells from one environmental condition to the next environment condition, or from one sample to another sample, is a fundamentally different measurement than the existing relative percentage measurement which makes broad assumptions about the magnitude of cells present in a microbial community.
At Native Microbials, we have pioneered the incorporation of absolute cell counts into microbial community analysis as a means to more directly measure the overall system and how it shifts in response to random or induced perturbations.
Activity Layers
Although microbial communities are incredibly diverse, only a portion of the community members will be active at any given time. The vast metabolic capabilities collectively captured by the species diversity of the community allow it to adapt rapidly and efficiently to a changing environment—this is done through the activation and deactivation of specific metabolic processes. Conventional microbial community analysis methods generally rely on DNA-based analyses, and make a broad assumption that each identified species present in that environmental condition and / or sample is relevant at that moment in time. Advancements in gene expression, protein expression, and metabolism-related measurement tools have progressed rapidly over the past 5 years.
At Native Microbials, we have pioneered the incorporation of these advancements, along with proprietary markers and tools, into our platform to focus on subpopulations and their respective chemistries, and in turn to effectively and directly assess individual members of the microbial community and where they fit in overall microbial community.
Microbial Interactions
In nature, microbial communities exist as complex networks of species that interact among themselves as well as their environment. These interactions not only dictate the composition and structure of the community, but also influence the overall functionality and chemistry of the system. By using innovative approaches and mathematical methods to analyze and interpret interactions within a microbial community, and by leveraging network theory to understand how species within a community group themselves, we can gain insight into the intertwined relationships that define the overall community and the processes we observe at the environmental level. Understanding these interactions and how microorganisms within a community organize themselves enables us to create effective products that are compatible with and able to influence the naturally occurring microbial ecosystem.
Standardize a Product
Stabilizing native microbes for reliable, cost-effective, and ease of use is critical to our customers’ success.
At Native, we take a “design/build” approach in our product development, facilitating the standardized delivery of the next generation of Native microbes.
Safety
All Native Microbials candidate strains are derived from the animal the product is developed for, and fully characterized at the genetic and phenotypic level for biosafety. This ensures there are no concerns from a worker safety, animal safety, end consumer, or environmental perspective. All our strains are categorized as Risk Group 1 organisms, which are not associated with disease in healthy adult humans or animals, additionally ensuring that our microbes are safe for all.
Stability
At Native, we are passionate about our high performing strains, and carefully engineer our production processes to preserve strain viability through manufacturing to on-farm or real-world product administration. Each strain that is a part of a Native Microbials product is isolated to pure culture, produced at scale by fermentation, preserved through a suite of drying technologies, and protected from moisture and other environmental factors by encapsulation. The combination of strains, additives and packaging materials are chosen and optimized to yield a product that can survive ambient supply chains, standard on-farm or real-world application operations, and most importantly, to maximize customer return.
Delivery
Standard on-farm operations or real-world product application conditions can be an inhospitable place for introducing microbes. Moist feed rations, containing free radicals and endogenous bioburden, or feed sanitation practices such as steam pelleting, can all negatively impact viability of a novel microbial solution. Mixing procedures on-farm or in your animals feed can also be a challenge. Native Microbials partners with many farms and industries to understand and incorporate the details of these on-farm challenges into the engineering of our microbial solutions through product formulations, specific and customized administration protocols, and value-added services like mixing studies thus enabling our customers to extract maximum value out of the products Native Microbials provides.
