CIC2021 Event Series started with the hot topic of sustainable food and the father of bioeconomy
The CLIB International Conference is not just one of the technologically important conferences in the biotech and bioeconomy field, but also an important event for the CLIB community to meet and network. This year, the CLIB management team had to change the plans to invite everyone to Düsseldorf and adapt to the restrictions imposed on us by the pandemic. An event series of three virtual events, one full-day, hybrid closing event in summer, and one interactive event platform will make up for the traditional conference.
The first virtual event was held in the afternoon of 11 March and took a closer look on how to finance, produce and market healthy and sustainable food and feed. The session was moderated by Dr. Dr. h.c. Christian Patermann, former member of the European Commission and often referred to being the father of the bioeconomy, from a professional studio near Düsseldorf. As usual for the CIC, the presentations ranged from an investor’s perspective, through innovative technologies from academia and SMEs to insights from industry players.
The keynote was given by Yvette Go from Capricorn Partners. She introduced how Capricorn Partners invests into sustainable innovative companies with its Capricorn Sustainable Chemistry Fund and presented the Fraunhofer IVV spin-off PROLUPIN producing alternative food proteins based on lupines. The participants had multiple questions on how Capricorn invests and how PROLUPIN works. They used the chance to pose their questions during the Q&A and during the networking break to also get in direct contact with Yvette Go.
After the break, a tandem presentation from Yvonne Mücke, metaX Institut für Diätetik GmbH, and Stefan Rasche, Fraunhofer IME, introduced how they developed a recombinant Phenylalanin-free protein to be the basis for an innovative Phenylketonuria dietary management concept increasing life quality for patients. The new protein already has a preliminary classification as novel food.
The third presentation was given by Leo Groenewegen, CEO of CellulaREvolution ltd.. He presented CellulaREvolution’s approach for a continuous cell culture to produce cultured meat at affordable costs. Their technology is up to 7,000 times more effective compared to bath technologies and has the chance for an 80% resource reduction.
The last, but not least presentation was given by Stefan Pelzer from Evonik Operations GmbH. The Nutrition and Care Unit works on improving chicken gut health to reduce the use of antibiotic growth promotors in livestock farming and thus making meat production more sustainable. Among other approaches Stefan Pelzer showed how they are developing Bacillus-based probiotics by using in vitro chicken gut simulation systems.
The joint Q&A session after these three presentations did again not allow for all questions to be answered, but the open-end networking session following the event was used to network directly with the speakers and talk about further possibilities to increase the number of healthy and sustainable proteins in our fridges.
The platform used for the CIC event series, Eventmobi, is not closed after the first session, but will stay open until end of June. If you missed the first session, come, and join us for the subsequent sessions. This will not only allow you to listen to the presentations but allow you to network with all participants of the CIC2021 Event Series.
The next session on Empowering C1-utilisation will be live on Wednesday, 14 April from 9.30 h – 12.30 h CEST. This event will focus on various aspects of the utilisation of C1-molecules as feedstocks for biotechnological processes. The keynote speaker will be Martin Langer (B.R.A.I.N AG), who will discuss the greenhouse gas CO2 as a building block for value chemicals. Prof. Anna Mechler (RWTH Aachen) and Birgit Lewandowski (Electrochaea GmbH) will focus on the exciting coupling of electrochemical and biotechnological technologies and potential applications. Finally, an interesting presentation will be given by Edda Höfer (Südzucker AG). She will report on the platform technology developed for the optimised production of sugar specialities. Be there and listen to great speakers with fascinating presentations!
Jüchen, DEU, 11.03.2021
Livestream im Lightbox-Studio Frank Wiedemeier
Foto: Bernd Lauter/berndlauter.com
