Fears of “Poor engineering due to insufficient process understanding”

Fears of “Budget overruns and endless construction delays”

Fears of “Failed commissioning requiring full restart”

Fears of “Unmet process targets and wasted investment”

These four fears represent four major barriers between laboratory achievements and large-scale mass production. They are real pain points repeatedly encountered by numerous cutting-edge tech startups advancing the industrialization of synthetic biology and biological fermentation. TIANS previously unveiled its value proposition: PROCESS ORIENTED, INVESTMENT OPTIMIZATION, ONE-TIME SUCCESSFUL TRIAL RUN, ENSURE PROCESS INDICATORS. It offers a systematic solution targeting these four core pain points. Recruiting leading process experts rooted in production frontlines constitutes TIANS' core talent foundation to honor this value commitment.

Recently, TIANS Group's Top 50 Leading Process Experts Initiative (T50 Program) continues to make progress. Mr. Leon Lou, a distinguished domestic expert in biological fermentation processes, has joined TIANS. He serves as General Manager of the Synthetic Biology Division and Director of the Synthetic Biology Equipment Research Institute. He will further extend process experience accumulated on production sites into engineering design and project construction, bridge technical gaps between fermentation processes and engineering implementation, as well as between design packages and commissioning & startup. Fundamentally, he will resolve the “four fears” hindering synthetic biology industrialization and help more biomanufacturing enterprises accomplish the critical leap from lab-scale R&D to large-scale production.

01 Two Decades of Progression: From Frontline Process Engineer to Plant Director

Mr. Leon Lou graduated from Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, majoring in Bioengineering. He joined Hubei Dongyangguang Pharmaceutical via campus recruitment in 2006, starting his career as a process engineer in the fermentation workshop. Over nearly two decades, he held successive roles including dispatcher, process team leader, sterilization shift supervisor, workshop director, branch plant director and Deputy Director of the Technology Department. His experience covers multiple fermentation products such as erythromycin, lincomycin and enzyme preparations.

His long immersion in production sites grants him systematic, in-depth knowledge of large-scale fermentation production, spanning process workflows and engineering systems. Strain metabolic regulation, fermentation process control, sterility assurance, equipment & piping selection, workshop layout and automatic control — these traditionally separate technical disciplines are inherently interconnected in real production and form the full chain for translating fermentation processes into commercial manufacturing.

Cross-disciplinary talents capable of comprehending process R&D, workshop design, plant construction and production operation are scarce within the fermentation industry. Mr. Leon Lou's career path has cultivated exactly this practical capability bridging process & production, technology & engineering. His on-site process judgment aligns perfectly with TIANS' value proposition.

Photo | T50 Expert Leon Lou

02 700-Hour Continuous Fermentation: From Process Exploration to Engineering Practice

Mr. Leon Lou's career has been marked by breaking conventional boundaries. Between 2023 and 2024, he led the construction of the 2nd Pilot Biochemical Pharmaceutical Workshop at Dongyangguang, establishing the process framework and experimental setup for continuous fermentation and carrying out related process exploration. After repeated trials, he successfully realized the sterile continuous material transfer workflow for fermenters, achieving stable fermentation cycles of up to 700 hours. This performance ranks among China's leading benchmarks for industrial fermentation and lays solid data foundations for future large-scale continuous production.

During the construction of Dongyangguang Biochemical Pharmaceutical's Lincomycin Branch Plant, he delivered a landmark engineering practice: he oversaw dismantling old equipment from Erythromycin Fermentation Plant 1 & 2, relocating and reinstalling these assets at the new lincomycin site. The reuse of existing equipment greatly cut capital expenditure while fully meeting production performance requirements.

03 Cross-domain Integration: Reinforcing Core Capabilities for Synthetic Biology Industrialization

At the recently concluded 2026 TIANS International Technology Forum, Mr. Leon Lou delivered a keynote speech titled Application and Prospect of Synthetic Biology in Biomanufacturing. He thoroughly analyzed core bottlenecks restricting synthetic biology industrialization, including difficulties in process implementation and insufficient linkage for engineering translation.

Photo | Leon Lou delivering keynote speech at 2026 TIANS International Technology Forum

As an engineering design group empowering the industrialization of emerging technologies, TIANS advocates the philosophy of Full Process-oriented, regarding process technology as the core of engineering construction. TIANS delivers integrated Synthetic Biology Industrialization EPC solutions covering process development, engineering consulting & design, EPC, automation & informatization and intelligent equipment, enabling clients to achieve “From Lab to Fab” industrial translation.

Synthetic biology industrialization must stand real-world tests for stability, throughput, quality and cost. Under Mr. Leon Lou's leadership, the Synthetic Biology Equipment Research Institute focuses on three core areas: high-end bioreactors, fully automatic fermentation systems and industrial software. Targeting pain points such as sterility assurance, insufficient scale-up data and data silos, the institute leverages equipment innovation to drive intelligent upgrading of fermentation workflows and accelerate the transformation of premium strains from R&D to mass production.

Photo | Leon Lou, Director of Synthetic Biology Research Institute

Regarding his joining TIANS, Mr. Leon Lou stated: “I aim to lead the team to embed know-how in continuous fermentation, lightweight design, data-driven operation and unmanned production into engineering design. We ensure smooth project delivery from construction drawings through commissioning and startup, truly meeting the delivery standard of ‘successful first-time commissioning with guaranteed process indicators'. We help more biomanufacturing enterprises cross the industrialization divide.”

To spare cutting-edge synthetic biology technologies from costly low-level trial-and-error cycles, enabling laboratory achievements to directly enter efficient, replicable large-scale industrial channels and convert technical advantages into clients' long-term industrial competitiveness — this is TIANS' long-standing technological vision.

We recognize that the deep-rooted inertia within the engineering industry cannot be reshaped overnight, nor can industrialization gaps be fully eliminated by a single initiative. By launching the Top 50 Leading Process Experts Initiative (T50 Program) and recruiting hands-on frontline experts one after another, TIANS chooses a down-to-earth path to gradually advance industrial development and go the extra mile in every delivered project.

This transformation requires no grand proclamations. It resides in every equipment selection scheme, every workshop layout drawing, every pre-emptive assessment during commissioning. Sustained innovation practices day in and day out will eventually converge into a robust force to drive high-quality industrial rollout of the whole synthetic biology sector.