On February 4^th, 2019, the fifth BioSC Spotlight took place in Bonn. This time, the focus was on factors determining whether a new technology actually comes onto market, such as value-added partners, competitors and public and private standards. Scientists from academia and industry held a total of eight specialist lectures. The “Transfer of bio-based inventions into the market” World Café provided a platform for intensive discussions for the more than 50 participants.

There were two SEED FUND calls in 2018 as part of phase 2 of the NRW BioSC strategy project. The OPEN Call was without thematic restrictions while the LINK call focused on topics related to the FocusLabs. Five projects were selected and started at the end of 2018.

At the end of 2018, PhD students in the FocusLabs had the opportunity to apply for interdisciplinary mini-projects. Four projects were selected and started at the beginning of 2019.

The 10^th “BIO-raffiniert” conference took place from February 26^th to 27^th, 2019 at Fraunhofer UMSICHT in Oberhausen. This year´s theme “New ways to use biogenic resources?”, which was also the topic of the first “BIO-raffiniert” conference in 2003, was examined from different perspectives. Two of the presentations were given by BioSC members Dr. Nina Ihling (RWTH Aachen University) and Dr. Arnd Kuhn (Forschungszentrum Jülich). 

The end of the era of lignite production requires innovative concepts in the Rhenish lignite mining area in order to preserve economic power and quality of life in the region and to align towards sustainability. Here, the bioeconomy can make important contributions. Recent months have therefore seen the launch of explorations of regional bioeconomy potentials.

On March 13^th, the 20th BioS^thC Lecture took place at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Prof. Dr. Thomas Brück, holder of the Werner Siemens Chair for synthetic biotechnology and director of the AlgaeTec Center at the Technical University of Munich, presented different bioprocesses for fixation, valorization and storage of CO₂.

SAVE THE DATES:

The International BioSC Summer School 2019 will be held from September 9-13 at Forschungszentrum Jülich.  Registration will be opened at the end of April.

From September 23-27, 2019,  the interdisciplinary conference „Klausurwoche Bioökonomie“ will be held at the German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences (DRZE), University of Bonn. The Deadline for Abstracts is May 1, 2019. The conference language is German.

More Information on events and calls is available here.