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UMAMI Bioworks and the Future of Aquaculture

On December 4, 2025, UMAMI Bioworks made a groundbreaking announcement by unveiling the first-ever Virtual Marine Cell (VMC). This innovative tool employs artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a constraint-based metabolic model that simulates the intricate biological processes of aquatic organisms with unprecedented precision. The company aims to set a new digital foundation for Japan's blue economy, facilitating advancements in aquaculture, cultured seafood, and the burgeoning field of marine bioactive compound discovery. By utilizing VMC, they intend to accelerate research and development, improve predictive accuracy, and significantly reduce both the number of experiments conducted and associated costs.

The introduction of the Virtual Marine Cell signifies a pivotal shift from simple observation to predictive capabilities in marine biology. By harnessing species-specific datasets derived from key fish such as tuna, salmon, yellowtail, eel, mackerel, and sea bream—central to Japan's domestic production, export, and regional culinary culture—the VMC models how actual fish cells grow, respond to nutrients, adapt to stress, produce metabolites, and secrete these substances into their environment. By learning directly from biological and environmental data, this innovative platform condenses development cycles, which previously took years, into rapid computational insights.

Japan's fisheries sector is currently grappling with severe challenges: rising water temperatures, disease outbreaks leading to losses, increasing feed prices, shortages of juvenile fish, and fluctuating catch volumes. Over the last decade, average market prices have surged by over 40%, while fish production has plummeted by 67% from its peak in 1984. Alarmingly, 56% of fish species surrounding Japan have been classified as being at a low resource level.

Many of the hurdles faced in aquaculture stem from cellular-level issues. Challenges such as growth variability, immune responses, metabolic efficiency, and stress resistance have traditionally been hard to comprehend and predict. The Virtual Marine Cell enables researchers and producers to directly model these dynamics, paving the way for more robust production systems, improved survival rates, enhanced control over lipid composition and nutritional quality, and reduced biological risks.

This ambitious platform is also poised to bolster Japan's position as a leader in the field of marine-derived functional materials. Marine-derived lipids, peptides, enzymes, and bioactives play an essential role in key domestic industries, including skincare, nutrition, pharmaceuticals, and wellness. However, traditional exploration of these materials has been both time-consuming and costly. With the Virtual Marine Cell, rapid in silico analysis of metabolic pathways and secretion profiles allows for the identification of high-value metabolites within days, facilitating production optimization through metabolic engineering without the need for genetic modifications.

"The aquaculture sector has never had access to such a computational engine. The Virtual Marine Cell removes uncertainties in aquatic biology, enabling decision-making at the speed of software rather than being constrained by the pace of biology," stated Jun Nakata, Product Strategy Manager at UMAMI Bioworks.

UMAMI Bioworks is forming strong partnerships with leading companies in Japan's fisheries, aquaculture, biotechnology, consumer goods, and food sectors, building a robust and growing innovation pipeline domestically. Through these collaborations, the Virtual Marine Cell addresses real-world challenges such as productivity, environmental resilience, breeding optimization, and bioactive exploration. The technology is establishing itself as a key driver of next-generation competitiveness within Japan's blue economy, supported by deep cooperation with domestic partners. Furthermore, UMAMI Bioworks plans to establish an AI Innovation Center in Tokyo within the coming months, further enhancing collaboration across the country.

By enhancing the biological performance of key fish species and providing predictive infrastructures to address future challenges brought about by climate change and supply constraints, the Virtual Marine Cell is positioned to support Japan's long-term food security and herald a new era of AI-driven aquaculture innovation.

About UMAMI Bioworks

UMAMI Bioworks is a global aquatech innovator leveraging AI-driven tools and cultured seafood technology to accelerate sustainable growth across the entire marine economy. Among its investors are notable Japanese companies like Maruha Nichiro Corporation, Toyo Seikan Group Holdings Co., Ltd., and Anthrod, as well as internationally recognized blue economy investors, including Aqua-Spark and Hatch.