CARMA Hub project

Affordable Aseptic Electro-Bioreactor for Reproducible Hydrogen Oxidising Bacteria (HOB) Research is a CARMA Hub Pump Priming project. The idea is to give two university labs the same affordable, open piece of kit and the same medium, and see whether they get the same results growing HOB on hydrogen made in the culture. If they do, anyone with the kit can join in.

AMYBO’s part is the kit and the training. The Aseptic electroPioreactor is the kit.

Who

• Dr Sonja Billerbeck, Imperial College London, Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein: principal investigator.
• Prof. Chris French, University of Edinburgh: principal investigator and collaborator.
• AMYBO: design and training partner.
• LabCrafter: supplier of the kits.

Progress

• November 2025. Six AEP 0.1 units built. Imperial and Edinburgh students trained on them together at the University of Edinburgh, 18 to 21 November, building three of the units themselves. The write-up covers what worked, what didn’t, and what we changed afterwards, down to moving the SodaStream cylinders to the back of the raft.
• 2026. AEP 0.2 designed from what 0.1 taught us. The first kits reached Edinburgh in September 2026, with Imperial’s to follow, and the build guide is being published at docs.electropioreactor.org/AEP.
• Results, meeting notes and training records are in the repository, and Edinburgh’s first runs are on the forum.

Come and see electroPioreactors running at the AMYBO get-together on 13 November 2026 at Imperial’s White City labs.