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Growth Curves

From Genes to Growth: Understanding Microbial Behavior

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Roadmaps
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Methods
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Benchmarks
GROQ-seq HIBIT Growth Curves

Overview

Microbes are essential to life—shaping ecosystems, driving industrial processes, and influencing human health. Yet despite their global importance, we still lack the ability to predict how microbial genomes interact with environmental conditions to produce specific traits. Align’s Microbial Genotype-to-Phenotype platform is designed to close that gap.

Proposal
Read the Proposal
ATCC Press Release
Read the Press Release

Strategy

We’re building the world’s largest public, AI-ready dataset of microbial growth behavior by profiling 1,000 phylogenetically diverse microbial strains across 1,000 cultivation conditions—a total of one million unique experiments. Our automated platform measures growth curves, morphology, pH, and other phenotypic signals under systematically varied environmental factors like temperature, atmosphere, nutrient composition, and chemical stressors.

platform capabilities

Our platform is distinctive:

  • Standardized, automated, and reproducible phenotyping at scale
  • AI-guided condition selection via BacterAI to maximize experimental value
  • Open-access dataset linking phenotype to genome for ML model training
  • Partnership with ATCC, enabling robust genome-phenotype integration via Align’s Phenome Portal and ATCC’s Genome Portal

By bridging genotype and phenotype through rich, high-resolution data, this platform lays the foundation for predictive models that can identify optimal growth media, forecast microbial responses to environmental change, and guide strain design for biomanufacturing and climate applications

Timeline

2024

Held Microbes! The Workshop

2025

Phase I: Methods development (20,000 datapoints)

Start Phase II: Pilot scale (230,000 datapoints)

2026

Finish Phase II: Pilot scale (230,000 datapoints)

Phase III: Full scale (750,000 datapoints)

Microbial Modeling Tournament (coming soon!)

Technical Program Manager

Shantal Al Habib
LinkedIn

Shantal studied Biological Chemistry at the University of Toronto and previously worked in R&D and process development at Resilience, where she also gained experience in scientific project management. At Align, she leads the Microbes Dataset initiative, which aims to deepen our understanding of microbial biodiversity and growth.

Interested in getting involved?

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