ne of the main achievements that the European Commission can boast in the period 2014-2019, is the successful launch of the Circular Economy package. Indeed, over recent years the mindset of citizens, scientists and industries alike have matured, coming to the common understanding that our intensive linear way of life is depleting our natural reserves whilst the resulting waste streams are overburdening the environment. The revision of European legislative frameworks as well as national analogous policy initiatives are expediting the transition towards a more circular economy, in which waste streams are upcycled into qualitative secondary resources. The Biorefine Cluster Europe (www.biorefine.eu) is a cluster of European projects, with 21 currently running projects associated (and growing).

The research group “Bioprocesses and Bioanalytics” and the Helmholtz Innovation Lab “MiBioLab” at IBG-1 received the first Labvolution Award at the LABVOLUTION trade fair in Hanover on Tuesday. The award honours ideas that improve laboratories – in this case with the creation of an automated and miniaturised cultivation platform by Prof. Marco Oldiges’ research group. This received 1st place. The Labvolution trade fair in Hanover is the most important trade fair on the subject of digitisation and automation in the laboratory sector.

On 25 April, the journal "Science" reported on a recent publication by Schwinges et al., which was published as part of the BioSC project BiFuProts. The anchor peptide technology used here was developed as part of several BioSC projects and is currently also used in the BioSC FocusLab greenRelease.

On March 13th, the 20th BioSC Lecture took place in the Jülich Research Center. 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.

The 10th “BIO-raffiniert” conference took place from February 26th to 27th, 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-refined” 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 (FZ Jülich). 

The fifth event in the “BioSC Spotlight” series took place in Bonn on February 4, 2019. This time the focus was on factors that influence whether a new technology can enter the market, as value chain partners, competitors, public and private standards. Scientists from academia and industry held a total of eight specialist lectures. The World Café „Transfer of bio-based inventions into the market“ offered the opportunity for intense discussion.