Forum Life Science 2009

Pharma Development – Food and Nutrition –
Industrial Biotechnology

18./19. März 2009, Technische Universität München, Garching

Nachbericht

Life Sciences are one of the key technologies of the 21st century. As a result of increasing knowledge in biosciences new opportunities have evolved for pharma, food and chemical industry.

This is also reflected in the great response to the 6th International Congress 'Forum Life Science' that took place on 18 and 19 March 2009 at the Technische Universität in München, Garching. With the focus on 'Pharma Development', 'Food and Nutrition' and 'Industrial Biotechnology' it was again an international meeting point for experts from industry and academia. More than 1,000 participants from 20 countries and 137 exhibitors made this outstanding event. The Congress was conceptualised and organised by Bayern Innovativ with the comprehensive support of the Bavarian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology. Involved were also the Bavarian Clusters Biotechnology, Nutrition, Chemistry and Medical Engineering.

Plenary Session

Political Framework for Innovation in Life Sciences
Interdisciplinary Research: Key to Progress
Raw Material Shift for a Sustainable Future
Future Strategies in Health Care Industry
Nutritional Concepts and Consumer Acceptance

Pharma Development

New Pharma Strategies to Overcome the Innovation Crisis
Novel Technology Platforms for Drug Discovery
Biomarkers for Prevention, Prognosis and Therapy
Pharmaceutical Challenges for an Ageing Population

Food and Nutrition

Developing Nutrition Approaches
Technologies for Innovative Food Products
Nutrition and Health: Towards Preventive Health Concepts
Novel Marketing Strategies

Industrial Biotechnology

Shaping the future with a biobased industry
Renewable raw materials for industrial applications
'omics' technologies for high-performance biotech production
Biorefineries for the supply of chemical products

Plenary Session

Political Framework for Innovation in Life Sciences

Bavaria is one of the leading biotech regions in Europe – the result of clear-sighted technology politics of the Bavarian State Government, as Katja Hessel, Secretary of State of the Bavarian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology, stated in her opening speech at the “Forum Life Science”. She underlined that it is the duty of the state to provide a reliable and supporting framework, especially for small and medium sized companies which drive innovation.
Dr Peter Heinrich, CEO, MediGene AG, and President, BIO Deutschland, pleaded for fiscal support of research, e.g. by providing tax credits for innovative companies.

Interdisciplinary Research: Key to Progress in Science and Industry

Life science research is performed at universities as well as in companies. Prof Wolfgang Herrmann, President of the Technische Universität München, stressed, interdisciplinarity – as exists at the TUM - is one key factor for success. Another factor is cooperation, and the transfer of knowledge from academia into industrial application to gain economic value.
Bayern Innovativ provides platforms for networking beyond the borders of disciplines and application areas. As Prof Josef Nassauer, Chief Executive of Bayern Innovativ, outlined, the “Forum Life Science” brings together experts from natural science, nutrition research, medicine and engineering, from industry and academia, from Bavaria, Germany and all over the world.

Major trends and strategies in the Pharma, Food, and Industrial Biotechnology sectors were considered in detail at the “Forum Life Science” in three parallel sessions. The presentations by Dr Günter von Au, Süd-Chemie, Prof Klaus Lindpaintner, Roche, and Prof Hannelore Daniel, TU München, during the plenary session already gave an overview over those topics.

Raw Material Shift for a Sustainable Future

Currently, the chemical industry is using about 8 to 10 % renewable resources. This share will increase in future due to the limited supply with fossil resources, in particular of crude oil. Renewable raw materials will substitute those resources and will be the source not only for food but also materials and energy. The utilisation of biomass for the production of biofuels is of particular importance as it will have a major impact on climate protection and CO2 reduction. As Dr Günter von Au, Managing Board Chairman of the Süd-Chemie, stated, different solutions will be implemented in different regions of the world. Additionally, this will also bring new impulses for other industries, such as the automotive sector, as new engines will be flexible to run alternatively on biofuels of the second generation.

Future Strategies in Health Care Industry

Personalised medicine will in future have a major impact on improved and more efficient therapies. As many diseases are rather complex and heterogeneous, a thoughtful and differentiated consideration of the disease as well as the patient's individual characteristics is significant for future therapies. In spite of increasing drug development costs and clinical failures, higher efficacy is a prerequisite for industry's competitiveness. With this in mind, Prof Klaus Lindpaintner, Global Head, Molecular Medicine Policy and External Affairs at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Switzerland, outlined future healthcare strategies in the pharmaceutical industry with respect to Roche's activities in personalised medicine. He stated, that based on the growing understanding of diseases on the molecular level, future therapies will no longer be empiric and palliative but rather causally targeted. Hereby, biomarkers will play a crucial role in diagnosis and therapy.

Nutritional Concepts and Consumer Acceptance

Growing knowledge on the genetic basis, the molecular mechanisms and the metabolic processes determining health not only leads to novel strategies in the pharma sector, but also influences the trends in nutrition research and food industry. Consumer acceptance of novel concepts is diverse, however. From fresh, natural products, over individualised diets, to functional food and dietary supplements - there is a market for each of them, as Prof Hannelore Daniel from the ZIEL Research Center for Nutrition and Food Science outlined.

Pharma Development

New Pharma Strategies to Overcome the Innovation Crisis

Expiring patents of blockbuster drugs, increasing costs for the development of new drug candidates and a lack of potential successors in their pipeline, are challenging the pharmaceutical industry. Approaches from industry and academia to fill the innovation gap were presented in the sessions on 'Strategies for Pharma Development' and 'Platforms for innovative Therapeutics'.

Prof Günther Wess, President and CEO of Helmholtz Zentrum München chaired and introduced to the first session on 'Strategies for Pharma Development'. As a result of recent progress in life sciences, the molecular understanding of complex and chronic diseases is continuously improving and provides the basis for future therapeutic intervention. The treatment of multi-factor diseases demands novel approaches from industry and basic science can help to cover the innovation gap.
Basic research is a major contributor to innovation and to potential drug candidates. However, such candidates are often at very early stages or may lack proof-of-concept and thus, demand further evaluation to be of interest to industry. The Max Planck Drug Discovery & Development Center is bridging the gap between academic and industrial research. The expertise of the Lead Discovery Center covers medicinal chemistry, assay development & high-throughput screening, biology and pharmacology. Dr Matthias Stein-Gerlach and Dr Bert Klebl elaborated how new leads are identified and validated for diseases with high unmet medical need, such as cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative or cardiovascular diseases.

Lead identification stands at the beginning of the drug discovery process. Nevertheless, efficiently directing the early phases in drug discovery can make the difference between success and failure. The entire phase of lead optimisation usually requires the synthesis of hundreds of compounds over years until the desired pharmacological characteristics are obtained. In silico methods can contribute to make the process faster and more efficient. Dr Jürgen Mack gave insights into medicinal chemistry approaches at Boehringer Ingelheim, in particular the in silico screening of virtual compounds with BICLAIM (BI Comprehensive Library of Accessible Innovative Molecules) and fragment-based screening methods.

To develop novel therapeutics for the treatment of oncological, respiratory and metabolic diseases, Roche Kulmbach concentrates on silencing disease-associated genes by RNA interference (RNAi). Small molecules and monoclonal antibodies have only a limited number of druggable targets, e.g. in cancer treatment, while the number of potential targets amenable to RNAi is much broader. Further advantages of the technology are the rapid lead identification and the suitability for personalised therapies. On the other hand, current limitations are mainly associated with the delivery, in particular with cell-type specific functional cytoplasmic delivery. The promises and challenges of this technique as a new Drug Discovery platform were outlined by Dr Roland Kreuzer.

Another novel platform in Drug Discovery are new scaffolds for ligand-binding proteins, e.g. nanobodies or domain antibodies. A class of scaffolds that bind with high affinities similar to antibodies but are of much smaller molecular size, are so-called 'Anticalins'. Apart from their small size, Anticalins have several advantages as biopharmaceuticals, such as solubility, easily adaptable structures, alternative drug delivery routes as well as cost-effective production in bacterial and yeast systems. Dr Kristian Jensen from Pieris presented this new class of binding proteins and their use as therapeutics.

Focusing on autoimmune diseases, SuppreMol develops recombinant soluble Fc-γ receptors that preferably bind immune complexes, thereby competing with the cellular Fc-receptors and preventing the binding of the immune complexes to the immune cell. Prof Peter Buckel presented this novel platform of autoimmune disease therapies with regards to SuppreMol's activities in Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Although in the past years multiple acquisitions of biotech companies allowed pharma companies to access innovations, pharma industry is not solely interested in purchasing the biotech expertise. Cooperation with Biotech companies has also become an important approach for pharma industry to minimize risk factors and instantly access new technologies. And recently, pharmaceutical industry has been much more willing to significantly invest in early-stage developments. Cooperation strategies in view of a global-operating pharmaceutical company, namely Merck Sharp & Dohme, were presented by Dr Manfred Horst. The impact of scientific partnerships was highlighted as well as advice was given on how to approach the company or how the scientific evaluation process is carried out.

Biomarkers for prevention, prognosis and therapy

Biomarkers play a major role in discovery, development and clinical validation of new drugs and especially towards a more personalised medicine, biomarkers have become essential in therapy. A dedicated session on 'Biomarkers for Diagnosis and Targeted Therapies' showed their role and applications.

Biomarkers and targeted therapies were addressed in a dedicated session as part of the Pharma Development programme at the Forum Life Science Congress. Roche's biomarker expert in the oncology field, Prof Ralf Huss, presented how personalised healthcare is implemented in cancer therapies.

Characterising the cancer profile is important for a successful therapy. Cancers contain complex and heterogenous cell types and characterising their genetic background is important as the genes may be used as prognostic or predictive markers or even as therapeutic target. Ipsogen develops molecular diagnostic tests, based on PCR method and DNA array technology, to map diseases in order to guide patients and oncologists decision along their complex therapeutic path. Dr Vincent Fert presented how cancer profiling contributes to the decision making for the right therapeutic treatment.

Predictive medicine is taken a step forward at Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics were scientists have developed a test for breast cancer to identify a significant proportion of low risk patients – meaning that those patients identified may undergo early, less aggressive but yet equally effective treatment and may not have to undergo chemotherapy. The test combines sensitivity with specificity in an automated analysis system of tumor-specific genes based on kinetic PCR (kPCR) technique. Dr Christoph Petry gave insights into strategies of prognostic and predictive biomarker discovery with applications for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Autoantibodies have become valuable biomarkers for a range of cancers. They can be identified in the patients sera and reflect the individual patient history as well as they can characterise the specific state of a disease. Protagen developed a program utilising the autoantibody signature as biomarkers for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Notably, the technique offers a wide range of applications for e.g. patient stratification in clinical studies, treatment selection, therapy monitoring as well as disease progression testing as Dr Stefan Müllner addressed. Indications are not limited to autoimmune diseases and cancer, but may also include inflammatory or neurodegenerative diseases.

Alone in Germany about 8 million people suffer from diabetes and the number of patients is increasing by annually 5 %. Early diagnosis is important to avoid future complications. Blood Banks harbour a huge number of samples potentially available to the discovery of biomarkers. Samples of the Bavarian Red Cross Blood Bank are particularly suitable for the discovery of biomarkers that arise at early disease stages and currently the Blood Bank of the Bavarian Red Cross is leading a project to develop new test methods for the early diagnosis of diabetes 2 in collaboration with partners from industry and academia. Dr Silke Martin from the Blood Bank of the Bavarian Red Cross presented the project together with one of the industrial partners Dr Fritz Huber from LipoFIT. LipoFIT's core technique is NMR spectroscopy that allows the rapid and accurate analysis of the blood samples.

Pharmaceutical challenges for an ageing population

As a result of an ageing population the incidence of degenerative diseases will undoubtedly increase in future. These include neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, as well as musculoskeletal disorders. New therapeutic approaches in regenerative medicine were presented in the session 'Regenerative Therapies and Stem Cells'.

Basic research has contributed much to the understanding of such diseases and might have laid the cornerstone for future therapeutic therapies. One outstanding scientist who has contributed significantly to the field of Alzheimer's disease is Prof Christian Hass at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. A focus of his research interest is understanding the basics of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease and enzymes responsible for the processing of the beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP) to the disease characterising Amyloid beta-peptide (Aβ). Aβ aggregates to oligomers in the disease-defining amyloid plaques found in Alzheimer's patients. One potential therapeutic approach is to find Aβ lowering drugs, for instance by intervening or blocking the activity of the proteins required for its generation. Small molecules, peptides and even antibodies are focus of many pharmaceutical companies as potential drug candidates to intervene with the Aβ generation. Prof Christian Hass outlined how the fundamental understanding of cellular and molecular mechanisms of the disease contributes to the development of novel approaches in drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases.

A rather novel move towards the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases are stem-cell based approaches. Stem cells can be very useful in the drug development process from various perspectives:

as cell source for the generation of specific cell types to be replaced in the patient;
as target cell in the patient leading to a specific activation and differentiation of endogenous progenitor cells e.g. into neuronal cell types;
as cellular assay system to find compounds enabling their differentiation or
as system to understand the basics of the cellular neurodegeneration process.

Many of these different aspects were addressed in this session. A leading expert in the field is Prof Stephen Minger from King's College London who was awarded one of the first two licenses granted by the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) for the derivation of human ES cell lines. Moreover, in October 2008 Britain's House of Commons has agreed to permit selected scientists to use animal-human hybrid embryos for stem cell research. Prof Minger's group is one of the research groups allowed to generate human-animal hybrids for therapeutic research purposes. The generated stem cells lines are expected to contribute to the understanding of diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, and could eventually help to find new drug candidates for their treatment.

A groundbreaking finding in neuroscience is that stem cells even exist in the adult nervous system, and thus their targeted activation may help to replace diseased or lost tissue in future. One approach to activate endogenous progenitor cells was presented by Dr Anders Haegerstrand from the Swedish Biotech company NeuroNova in Stockholm. In preclinical experiments they found that upon delivery of growth factors into the brain, endogenous progenitor cells can be stimulated and that treatment with the substance restores motor function and improves neurochemical deficits in animal models of Parkinson's disease. The findings are going to be brought forward in future clinical trials and a first in human safety study has recently been approved.

Stem cells can also indirectly contribute to drug development, namely as cellular assay system in the drug screening process. Cellartis, a Swedish/British Biotech company, offers a broad range of applications of human embryonic stem cells as tools in drug discovery: from early target identification and validation studies to pharmatoxicology. Dr Raimund Strehl from Cellartis presented strategies of using human ES cells in drug discovery and toxicity testing. Cellartis is actively engaging research collaboration with academia and pharma industry. Just recently, a collaboration agreement between Cellartis, Novo Nordisk and Lund University was announced to develop insulin-producing cells from stem cells for the treatment of diabetes involving milestone payments of € 100 million.

Generating new tissue from cells is another approach in regenerative therapies. As musculoskeletal diseases are of high social and economical relevance (they account for approximately 20% of total health costs in Germany), the reconstruction of joint and bone tissue is of particular interest. Dr Ulrich Nöth is leading the Tissue Engineering group at the Orthopedic Center for Musculoskeletal Research at the University Würzburg. From a clinical perspective he reported on stem cell-based approaches for the repair of cartilage and bone defects.

Oxidative stress is known to contribute to neurodegeneration and antioxidants have been shown to facilitate neuroprotective activities in in vitro and in vivo models of neurodegenerative diseases. New approaches for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases were also picked up in other sessions at the Forum Life Science Congress. Prof Charles Ramassamy from the Institut Armand-Frappier in Quebec, Canada, attended to the topic in the session 'Food and Nutrition' from a nutritional point of view. Particularly the effects of polyphenols in food, their antioxidant activities and effects on reducing oxidative stress with special focus on Alzheimer's disease were addressed.

Food and Nutrition

Developing Nutrition Approaches

Understanding the function of micronutrients, their interaction with the human organism and conserving the activity during delivery are important for the development of novel, functional food products. Research approaches for developing new food products were presented in the session on 'Trends for Healthy Food'.

Progress in life sciences has significantly contributed to new approaches in food industry. Especially, as a result of faster and cheaper genomic analysis, genome wide association (GWA) studies have become possible on a broad range. Such GWAs are also of interest to the food industry to produce novel products with health benefits. The impact of genetic analysis was considered by Dr Dawn J. Mazzatti from Unilever. In particular, she addressed the question if nutrigenomics can help industry to better satisfy consumer needs. She outlined that in order to increase the value of the genetic data for both consumer and industry, improvements in phenotyping techniques are important.

The goal of Prof Dr Bruce German's research, University of California and Nestle Research Center Lausanne, is to build new knowledge necessary to improve human health through superior food. His research focuses on how individual human lipid metabolism responds to chemical composites and structural organisation of foods. In his presentation he took in particular milk as a model to discover physical, functional and nutritional properties of its components and to apply these properties as principles to foods. Milk is the only bio-material evolved for the purpose of nourishing and is a result of constant Darwinian selective pressure and understanding such properties may therefore give suggestions for future food products.

Besides confirming the efficacy of micronutrients, the delivery of the ingredients is crucial to maintain their bioavailability and stability. 'Food technologists must develop food structures and process technologies to facilitate the incorporation of bioactives into a food matrix, but also to compensate for the reduction of fat, calories or other additives' as Dr Stefan Palzer from the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne stated. He presented on technologies to protect bioactive molecules from degradation with focus on micro-encapsulation, the principles as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the different technologies.

Technologies for Innovative Food Products

Convenience, health, and – above all – enjoyment are the main characteristics of food products requested by the consumer. To be able to achieve these requirements, food industry has to develop technologies and processes for innovative food products. On the one hand, bioactive substances delivering an added health value have to be identified, and their bioavailability has to be conserved without affecting sensory of the product. On the other hand, processes have to be developed to improve convenience and taste of healthy food choices.

One technology, adapted in fact from the pharma sector, is applied by B.R.A.I.N. AG for the identification of novel bioactive ingredients to be used in food or cosmetics. Dr Michael Krohn outlined how receptor screening in cell-based testing systems with a library of natural ingredients lead to the discovery of and supported the optimisation of novel ingredients.

Once identified, such bioactive ingredients have to be isolated or produced to be applicable in food products. Subsequently, their stability during storage, processing and digestion as well as their bioavailability at the desired site of action has to be assured. Micro-encapsulation of probiotics and low molecular weight bioactive substances in protein matrices is one technology applied at the Institute for Food Process Engineering at the Technische Universität München, presented by its head, Prof Ulrich Kulozik, at the “Forum Life Science”.

Prof Dietrich Knorr from the Technische Universität Berlin described how process parameters like high pressure and voltage pulses can be applied to develop tailor-made products.

How process parameters can be monitored and adjusted automatically during the process using fuzzy logic was described by Prof Thomas Becker from the University of Hohenheim using brewing processes as an example.

A new manufacturing process to reduce fat content in sausages without affecting the sensory and textural properties was presented by Christian Zacherl from the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV. Hans Georg Maier, Management Board Chairman of the Edeka Handelsgesellschatz Südbayern mbH outlined how such a product can be successfully marketed.

Nutrition and Health: Towards Preventive Health Concepts

The knowledge of the interaction between food and health enables us to develop new concepts for well-being as well as it may help to prevent diseases. Examples considered in the session on 'Novel approaches in nutrition and health' included cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory diseases of the gut or neurodegenerative diseases.

The lack of micronutrients up-regulates inflammatory pathways that are involved in pathogenic malfunctions, such as cardiovascular and digestive disorders, Alzheimer's Disease, arthritis and autoimmune diseases. A preventative health strategy should encompass a broad range of effective nutrients rather than just concentrating on singular types of micronutrients. Dr Ralf Schlothauer presented Comvita's (New Zealand) strategy to derive single and combinatorial products from ingredient platforms such as olive leaves, honey or cruciferous vegetables. Focusing on the example of Brassica and honey he demonstrated how such ingredients can contribute to a preventative health strategy.

The effects of nutritional concepts on health with focus on cardiovascular diseases was presented by Dr Ulrich Hildebrandt from the St. Irmingard Hospital in Prien am Chiemsee. Mediterranean food is not only delicious but can also reduce mortality from cardiovascular disorders as has been shown in evidence based studies. The knowledge generated from experience made in clinic and rehab was presented.

With an ageing population, the incidence of age-related diseases will increase. It is generally accepted that oxidative stress plays a role in many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease. Many natural plant ingredients possess anti-oxidative effects. Prof Charles Ramassamy from the Institut Armand-Frappier in Laval/Quebec, Canada, addressed the topic in the session 'Food & Nutrition' from a nutritional point of view. Particularly the effects of polyphenols in food, their antioxidant activities and effects on reducing oxidative stress with special focus on Alzheimer's disease were considered.

To improve foods, components have to be identified with advantageous or adverse effects on health and the mechanisms of action of such ingredients have to be clarified. Basic research to understand the interaction of the nutritional environment with the human organism is one topic of research at the Chair for the Biofunctionality of Food at ZIEL (Research Center for Nutrition and Food Science) of the Technische Universität München. The focus is on the role of the diet and of functional food ingredients in the regulation of chronic inflammation in the gut and the immune system. Prof Dirk Haller outlined this important interaction between metabolism and immune system with relation to the gut.

Novel Marketing Strategies

Whilst scientific knowledge is expanding in the food sector, this sector is nonetheless emotionally charged and technology often is not accepted initially. As a consequence, marketing strategies have to be developed to convince the consumer by making the knowledge and the need for innovation comprehensible.

To realise innovation first, SABMiller changed its R&D strategy in 2006 and adapted the concept of “open innovation” which enables the complementation of the core in-house capability through the integration of external knowledge. Dr Wolfgang Tosch from SABMiller also presented the first product developed under the new strategy, a beer containing less calories and carbohydrates than other beers – marketing arguments easily understandable for everyone.

Beer and other products of fermentation have been part of our nutrition for a long time. Classical production processes use the principle of spontaneous fermentation, making use of the microorganisms contained in the raw materials. Modern processes use controlled fermentation of sterile raw materials with added single, known starter cultures which makes the process reproducible and controllable. To combine the advantage of both these methods, “controlled mixed fermentation” can be applied to obtain the full amount and spectrum of ingredients normally obtained via natural fermentation whilst at the same time keeping the process controllable, as Prof Ulf Stahl from the Technische Universität Berlin explained.

Another way to obtain innovative products is the addition of bioactive, health-promoting ingredients to foods. One example is Becel pro-active containing phytosterols which help to lower the cholesterol level. Prof Elke Trautwein from Unilever outlined the experience with the market launch of this product, which took 6 years and cost Euro 25 million. She also explained the prerequisites necessary to make such a functional food product a market success: there has to be strong scientific evidence for the efficacy and safety of the product, the product must be endorsed by key opinion formers, and awareness for the need has to be raised in the population.

Dr Elena Lurie-Luke from Procter & Gamble stressed that obesity is one of the main health problems nowadays, and developing strategies to enable weight loss is important. She presented Olean, a fat substitute developed by Procter & Gamble, as one example of a food component possibly helping to solve the problem.

But as Prof Alfred Hagen Meyer, meyer//meisterernst lawyers, explained, the approval process for such health claims to market innovative products is quite extensive due to the European Health Claim Regulation.

Industrial Biotechnology

Shaping the future with a biobased industry

The impact of biotech-based processes is ubiquitous and of particular interest to many sectors, such as pharmaceutical, chemical and food industry. They may also contribute to a more sustainable supply with food, fuel and materials. The scope of industrial biotechnology with focus on the chemical industry was highlighted in the session on 'Perspectives of Industrial Biotechnology'.

The session 'Perspectives of Industrial Biotechnology', chaired by Prof Haralabos Zorbas from Bio-M WB GmbH, addressed aspects of the scale industrial biotech applications have today and in future. The economic impact of Industrial Biotechnology is increasing and the bioproducts market is anticipated to grow in future. Four specific drivers of growth in this industry have been identified: crude oil prices, end-consumer pull for "green" products, ambition to reduce greenhouse gases and scientific progress. Particularly, advancements in systems biology, pathway engineering and synthetic biology made industrial biotech processes competitive. Dr Ulrich Weihe from McKinsey & Co. addressed the economic impact of Industrial Biotechnology and its future perspective.

Biotech-based processes have especially found their way into the chemical industry. The biotech approach can make conventional chemical processes more simple, and by that more cost-effective, or may even allow processes that otherwise would not be achievable at all besides environmental impacts. The substitution of chemical by biotech processes is ongoing. The globally operating chemical company Wacker Chemie has already implemented biotech processes in its portfolio. Dr Günter Wich illustrated in particular the impact of biotechnology on the production of fine and bulk chemicals.

The finite availability of fossil resources, in particular crude oil, has brought considerable interest to biofuels. The production of second-generation biofuels and chemicals from cellulosic materials, such as straw, is a very attractive to chemical companies, such as the Süd-Chemie. Based on their core technologies – catalysis, adsorber and biotech – entire processes for chemicals and biofuels are developed. The usage of renewable resources for biofuels is controversially discussed ('Food vs. Fuel'), however, particularly biofuels from the latest generation have great potential without directly competing with food supply. Dr Andre Koltermann gave insights into perspectives and challenges associated with the usage of lignocellulose-based biofuels.

Renewable raw materials for industrial applications

Besides cellulose-based renewable raw materials, microalgae are also considered as resource to produce energy, chemicals or even pharmaceutical compounds. As Prof Rainer Buchholz from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg showed, microalgae have advantages, such as rapid biomass production as well as they contain high contents of valuable polymers and secondary metabolites. A major current challenge is the adapted light supply according to the growth phase as well as long-term stability of the production strains. Strikingly, as microalgae can fix CO2, combining biomass production with CO2 producing facilities, can contribute to CO2 reduction.

Novel findings from biosciences have also been applied in plant biotechnology. While the demand for crops is growing, the rural area is not increasing accordingly. Therefore, more efficient usage of the available area is required and due to climate changes the generation of more resistant plants is desirable. Dr Hinrich Harling outlined the application of novel technologies in plant science for the generation of agricultural crops for food and feed, medicinal plants for pharma production, industrial plants for chemical synthesis and energy plants for generation of biofuels. Depending on the application different strategies may be adopted in plant design.

'omics' technologies for high-performance biotech production

'omics' technologies have become an essential resource for biologists as well as bio-engineers. The findings of the 'omics' technologies together with novel approaches in synthetic and systems biology will have a major impact on biotech production processes as was presented in the sessions on 'Trends and Technology in Industrial Biotechnology' and 'Optimisation of Biotechnological Processes'.

Metabolix Inc., applies advanced tools of metabolic engineering to produce economically attractive alternatives to petrochemical-based plastics, chemicals and fuels. One example is the production of industrial biopolymers, such as PHA natural plastics, in microbial systems and nonfood plants. Their approach to develop new catalysts that allow the formation of building block monomers and their subsequent polymerisation, has been a major step for the bioplastic industry. Besides bioplastics, the technology platforms are also applied to the production of chemicals and biofuels based on renewable resources as Dr Oliver Peoples presented.

Searching for new enzymes for industrial applications, extremophilic microorganisms have become focus of many microbiologists. Such microorganisms - often containing well-conserved metabolic pathways - can be a gold mine to isolate new enzymes that even work under extreme conditions, such as high temperature, acidic conditions or high pressure. However, many microorganism are difficult to grow or do not grow at all in lab cultures. Due to improvements in high-throughput sequencing, it is possible to analyse the metagenome of an entire microorganism consortium without prior cultivation. Prof Wolfgang Liebl from the Technische Universität München is studying the metagenome of extremophilic bacteria with regards to polysaccharides and oligosaccharide breakdown and particularly cellulose- degrading properties.

Using rational and evolutionary approaches, at Direvo, industrial enzymes are engineered and optimised regarding multiple parameters, such as thermostability, activity, specificity, product yield, pH and protease resistance. As Dr Simon Curves presented, Direvo’s proprietary protein engineering and process optimization technologies have proven effective in difficult, multi-parameter optimization programs and for a diverse range of protein classes. The design and generation of novel biological functions and entirely new systems is possible with synthetic biology. Prof. Ralf Wagner from Geneart demonstrated how this new area of biological research opens novel ways to optimize bioprocesses.

A major challenge of the 'omics' technologies is to deal with the generated information and evaluate the data. System Biology is looking at various kinds of 'omics' data characterising the living cell, however, mathematical models are essential to process the data and to finally illuminate the complex biochemical networks. Prof Wolfgang Wiechert, University Siegen, showed approaches for the processing of raw data in order to obtain meaningful quantitative data for modelling in systems biology.

As 'omics' technology will eventually lead to more high-performance production strains, bioprocess engineering has to keep the pace to make use of the designed production strains on an industrial scale. In order to forward the 'omics' knowledge into bioproduction, Prof Dr Dirk Weuster-Botz from the TU München highlighted approaches in bioprocess engineering, including parallel bioreactors for faster bioprocess development, metabolic analysis of the cells in the fermentation process and biocatalysis with 'membrane reactors on a nL-scale' in two-phase systems.

Biorefineries for the supply of chemical products

The concept of a biorefinery is to integrate biomass conversion processes for the production of fuels, power, and value-added chemicals. The idea is similar to that of a petroleum refinery, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum. The following presentations focused on the implementation of biorefineries and the generated products as well as the catalysts required.

Dr Karin Bronnenmeier, Linde-KCA-Dresden GmbH, showed how biorefineries can be implemented into existing chemical production sites. Thereby, the existing site is using products from the biorefinery, such as bioethanol or bioethylen, as chemical precursor for the generation of value-added products, e. g. polymers. The integration of biorefineries has advantages compared to creating new plants from scratch since exiting infrastructures can be utilised.

The change from a petro-based towards a biobased industry requires novel biocatalysts. Therefore, the raw material switch implies also a switch in the catalysts used, as Prof Volker Sieber from the Science Centre Straubing pointed out. Basic reactions involved for the conversion of renewable raw materials comprise defunctionalisation, functionalisation, depolymerisation, coupling reactions and isomerisation. Chemical and biobased catalysis with respect to utilisation of renewable resources were compared.

The general status of the concepts of biocatalysis was presented by Prof Herfried Griengl from the Research Centre Applied Biocatalysis in Graz. During biotranformation the enzymes often have to utilise non-natural substrates, and at the same time require sufficient rate of reaction, stereochemistry and stability. However, not single enzymes for multiple substrates are available, but comprehensive enzyme libraries are required as they have been established at the Research Centre in Graz for industrial applications.

As alternative to cellulose-based raw materials, oleochemical-based raw materials were presented by Dr Ulrich Schörken from Cognis GmbH. They can be obtained from animal and vegetable fats as well as fish oil. The advantage of these raw materials is their close similarity to petro-based components compared to sugars from cellulose-based materials. Oleochemicals can also be utilised as substrate in microbial fermentation processes, such as the production of dicaboxylic acids (DCA) using candida tropicalis. DCA is a platform chemical for further chemical synthesis.

Another platform chemical produced by biotech process is succinic acid as presented by Dr Marcel Wubbolts from DSM, Netherlands. Succinic acid is used in a broad range of applications, such as food, coatings, pharmaceuticals and engine coolants. Biological production methods significantly reduce the costs of succinic acid, thereby allowing the penetration of new markets for the product, such as green plastics like PBS. Also the biological production reduces significantly the environmental impact as CO2 is fixed during the process. In partnership with Roquette, France, who are providing the renewable feedstock based on starch, succinic acid is produced.

As profitability of industrial biotechnology these days largely depends on the oil price, raw material flexibility will be essential in future. Therefore, industrial biotechnology will lead to rearranged supply chains in the chemical industry as Dr Frank Erhardt from Evonik Degussa showed. As demostrated for methanol and sphingosine production, biotechnological processes will substitute in future chemical methods. The implementation of new technologies, such as synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, will play a crucial role.