EFB Bioengineering &

Bioprocessing Section

Newsletter 01/2015

Dear EBBS Member,

Dr. Tim Overton

Dr. Louise Horsfall

Section Co-chairs:

EBBS Newsletter 2015 ● Issue 1● Page 1

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Synthetic Biology Risk Assessment by the EC

We would like to wish all the members of the EFB

Bioengineering and Bioprocessing Section a Happy

New Year and take this opportunity to reflect on

our successes in 2014 and let you know of our plans

for the coming months.

Last year we organized a meeting entitled Focus on

Frontiers in Industrial Biotechnology at the SCI

Meeting Rooms in London in November (see page

2), with the support of the BBSRC. Highlights

included plenaries from Professor Carl Borrebaeck

and Abraham Esteve-Nunez, a talk from the award

winning Imperial College iGEM team and a guest

appearance by Michael Palin at the conference

dinner, well sort of.

Participants described the meeting as “a gem of a

conference”, “well worth the trip” and told us to

“please count on us for future events”. The quality

of all the speakers was truly excellent and we hope

that by extending our membership we will be able

to provide more exciting events in this area in the

future.

In the coming year we will be supporting the

conference Bioflavour 2015 (see page 3), with topics

ranging from the functional characterisation and

metabolic engineering of flavour and fragrance

biosynthesis to microbial cell factories and

bioprocessing for flavour and fragrance production

to olfaction and receptors.

Following a massive investment from the UK

government in Synthetic Biology and the

establishment of three new SynBio Centres there

are many exciting job opportunities (see page 4).

We also plan to be more vocal as a section, adding

our voices to those of other EFB sections and the

Executive Board on the challenges and issues faced

by European scientists. To begin, we have asked our

section board members to add to an EFB response

to the European Commission’s public consultation

on the preliminary opinion on synthetic biology II

risk assessment methodologies and safety aspects

(see below).

Helping with this effort are three new additions to

our section board Jussi Jäntti (VTT Technical

Research Centre of Finland), Barbara Di Ventura

(University of Heidelberg) and Jon Marles-Wright

(University of Edinburgh). We welcome their input

and hope they enjoy their membership of the

board.

Last December, the European Commission (EC)

Scientific Committees issued a preliminary

opinion on Synthetic Biology II[1] on whether

existing risk assessment methods are adequate

for synthetic biology.

Written by a working group consisting of 20

SynBio experts from Europe and the USA [2], this

risk assessment could have a considerable impact

on European and global Synthetic Biology policy

making in the future.

We have therefore asked the EBBS board

members to contribute to the EFB response, as

comments, suggestions, explanations or contri-

butions on the scientific basis

of the preliminary opinion by

the public are invited to aid the Scientific

Committees to focus on issues that need further

investigation.

Submission of written comments on the

preliminary opinion are due by 03 February

2015[3].

More information:

• Science Magazine Editorial by Breitling,

Takano & Gardner (2015)

• Prelim. Opinion

scenihr_o_048.pdf

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6218/107/F1.medium.gif

EBBS Newsletter 2015 ● Issue 1● Page 2

Meeting Report: Focus on Frontiers in Industrial Biotechnology, November 17th-19th 2014, London.

EBBS would like to thank the following partners for

supporting for this meeting:

EBBS Workshop Outcomes: What does industry need from academia and vice versa? As part of the EBBS meeting Focus on

Frontiers in Industrial Biotechnology,

a workshop was held asking the

question “What does industry need

from academia” in the area of IB. The

discussion was lively and varied, and

industrialists, academics, postdocs

and PhD students all contributed

their views. The discussion centred

around three main areas:

Firstly, training is needed to ensure

that graduates/postgraduates are

able to work in industry. Key areas

included the need for individuals to

be objective-focused, flexible and

have the potential to develop onto

independent scientists within

industrial settings, while retaining an

understanding of business impact

and the needs of the company. The

benefits of 4-year PhD programmes

with a collaborative aspect with

industry were discussed, along with

the need for specific training

alongside research as part of PhD

programmes. Flexibility was also a

key theme when the academic

background of industrial recruits was

discussed. Specific degree subjects

were not considered as important as

problem-focused skills built on a

sound fundamental understanding of

biological systems and experimental

design, maths and statistics.

Communication across disciplines

was also a key theme, allowing

effective work in multidisciplinary

teams commonly found in industrial

settings. The ‘wish list’ for

recruitment included flexibility,

problem solving, hunger to learn and

a lack of fear of crossing discipline

boundaries; these should be stated

early on in applicants’ CVs! Finally,

barriers to progress were discussed.

The funding situation in the UK, with

generally high costs for overheads at

British universities, was identified,

and it was noted that UK partners in

EU projects are higher-cost than

partners from other EU nations.

Industry frequently cannot afford

research in UK universities.

Intellectual property was discussed,

and while there was a feeling that IP

was better understood now at

universities than previously, focus

was shifted to the use of university-

generated IP and the need for

academics to be more

entrepreneurial (for example,

through setting up spin-out

companies). Freedom to operate was

also identified as a key area that

needed addressing earlier in

academic-industrial collaborative

projects, to prevent problems when

patent protection was applied for.

Our first official meeting “Focus on

Frontiers in Industrial Biotechnology”

was held last November in London

(UK).

The three-day conference especially

addressed the need of enhanced

collaboration between academia and

industry with a great representation of

industrial and academic research (see

our final programme here).

The opening plenary lecture was given

Prof Carl Borrebaeck (Lund University)

on “Personalized Medicine – Decipher-

ing cancer”.

We specifically invited lectures by the

BBSRC NIBB project directors including

Prof Nigel Robinson (Metals in Biology),

Prof Dave Kelly (CBMNet), Prof Bob

Rastall (FoodWasteNet), Prof Simon

McQueen Mason (LBNet), Prof David

Leak (P2P), Dr Saul Purton (PHYCONET),

as these multidisciplinary networks aim

to foster collaborations between

academia, industry and policy makers

in industrial biotechnology and

bioenergy.

From industry we had talks Stuart

Stocks (Novozymes) on how to “better

understand large scale recombinant

protein production”, Andrew Ellis

(Biocatalysts Ltd.) on “Rapid And Cost

Effective Enzyme Development” and

Carsten Carstens from Agilent who was

presenting “new research tools for the

age of Synthetic Biology”.

Another highlight was the invited

lecture by Peter Neubauer (TU Berlin)

on ”Integrating strategies for industrial

scale bioprocess characterisation,

scaledown and consistent bioprocess

development”.

At the end of the systems and synthetic

biology session we addressed the

question “What does industry need

from academia and vice versa?” in a

panel workshop (see outcomes below).

Aleksandra Malyska (Polish Academy

of Sciences) presented a talk on

”consumer disinformation and market

of biotech products” emphasising the

importance of an active dialogue with

the public and policy makers.

Also the award winning Imperial

College iGEM team Aqualose presented

their impressive research on bacterial

cellulose.

The meeting ended with the closing

plenary lecture “Microbial Wonderfuel

Cells: changing the biotech paradigm in

wastewater treatment plants” by Prof

Abraham Esteve-Núñez (Uni. of Alcalá).

We would like to thank all our speakers

and attendees at the EBBS Frontiers in

IB meeting - the quality of the science

presented was truly excellent and we

hope you enjoyed it.

Our next meeting Bioflavour 2015 will

be held September 9-11 2015 in

Frankfurt (Germany) (see page 3 for

more details).

Closing Plenary lecture: Prof Esteve-Núñez (Uni. Alcalá) on “Microbial Wonderfuel Cells”

Dr. Louise Horsfall giving the closing remarks of the meeting.

Top to bottom: meeting audience; workshop panel discussion; poster and networking session.

To re-read the live

twitter comments

visit #EBBSfrontiers

Introducing EBBS Board Members:

Can you tell us about your background? And where are you based now?

After studying biotechnology at Technical University of Braunschweig I received my Ph.D. from Technical University Dortmund. At that time I already worked in the laboratories of DECHEMA, Frankfurt. Later in my career I got very much inspired as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, USA. Today, I am member of the Executive Board of DECHEMA Research Institute, a private foundation dedicated to interdisciplinary research for sustainable technologies. I am also associate professor at Goethe University Frankfurt where I am teaching in the master course molecular biotechnology.

What is your area of expertise?

My main research interest is in the biotechnological synthesis of natural products, especially flavour and fragrance compounds and terpenoids. In my group we are also looking at non-sugar carbon sources such as methanol for the development of new microbial production processes. In close collaboration with our colleagues from the electrochemistry group we also investigate novel bio-electrochemical systems as a basis for eco-efficient “next generation” bioprocesses.

What is your current research?

Currently, we are interested in engineering the solvent-tolerant bacterium Pseudomonas putida towards its usability as a platform microbe. We use it for bioconversion and de novo biosynthesis of monoterpenoids, a natural products class with interesting flavour, fragrance and antimicrobial compounds. These molecules are usually too toxic to be efficiently produced by recom-

binant conventional microbes such as E. coli and S. cerevisiae. Another area of our current research is dedicated to Methylobacterium extorquens. This bacterium grows on metha-nol as the carbon source, a very attractive alternative raw material for industrial biotechnology. We engineer the microbe, which can be grown to high cell densities, towards the production of interesting chemicals, for instance dicarboxylic acids which are unique to this type of methylo-trophic bacteria.

Why did you join EFB/EBBS?

The EBBS is devoted to both pillars of biotechnology, the biological part “bioengi-neering” and the technical part “bioprocess-ing”. In my opinion it is very important to foster the dialogue between these disciplines at an early stage in research to have maximum synergies. This mirrors exactly the philosophy we follow in my group at DECHEMA Research Institute. There, we intentionally combine microbiology, meta-bolic and process engineering concepts in our lab to get the best results when developing new bioprocesses.

Where do you see your contribution as a board member for EBBS?

Together with my colleagues in the board I try to contribute to interlink biotechnology activities in different countries for the benefit of our European biotech community. I would also like to support EBBS with my personal expertise, especially the biotechnological synthesis of small molecules for the chemical industry. Flavours and fragrances, for instance, is a well-established and still growing field of industrial biotechnology. Increasing understanding of

plant and microbial biosynthetic pathways and their exploitation e.g. by microbial cell factories open fascinating new avenues towards sustainable production starting from renewables. For this, I am happy that EBBS supports “Bioflavour 2015 – International Conference on Flavour and Fragrance Biotechnology”, which will be held in Frankfurt, Germany, 09-11 September 2015, for the first time (see below for more information).

Where do you see EBBS in the future?

EBBS should become a well-recognized platform where biologists and engineers devoted to industrial biotechnology meet for intense exchange of ideas and concepts across the borders of their disciplines. This should be done by organizing high-quality symposia on specific research topics within the scope of the section. The same way, combining efforts as often as possible with other European and national biotech working parties within and outside the EFB network would be of equal importance to bundle our forces for the benefit of the European biotech community.

Would you share an interesting fact about your persona?

I have always been inspired by two quite different areas of life: nature and music! Therefore, I feel privileged to have a job as a biotechnologist where I can try to under-stand and use some of nature’s principles to the welfare of our industrialized society. But I feel similarly privileged that I got some musical talent which I routinely use to play my piano and saxophone and other instru-ments at home and to compose. To me, this is the best way to recharge the battery.

Prof. Dr. Jens Schrader

DECHEMA Research Institute

Frankfurt am Main (Germany)

http://kwi.dechema.de/en/bce.html

At Bioflavour 2015 scientists from all

around the world discuss cutting-edge

bioflavour research, academic and in-

dustrial alike. Picking up the tradition of

the Bioflavour conferences of the 1980s

to 90s in the era of modern biotech-

nology, we cordially invite you to re-

establish the bioflavour “family meeting”

on a regular basis every three years.

Topics range from functional charac-

terisation and metabolic engineering of

flavour and fragrance (F&F) biosynthesis

to microbial cell factories and biopro-

cessing for F&F production to olfaction

and receptors.

With the advent of modern biotech-

nology, including systems biology,

metabolic and enzyme engineering and

the use of omics technologies, functional

characterisation of genes, proteins and

metabolites involved in F&F biosynthesis

has become more and more

sophisticated.

This knowledge can be harnessed in

multiple ways: e.g. for improving product

yields in plants, intensifying the aroma

during food and beverage fermentations

or developing tailored microbial cell

factories for the production of specific

F&F compounds. Complementary to the

biological aspects, process engineering is

equally important to improve existing or

to establish completely new industrial

bioprocesses.

Finally, the recognised shift towards a

bioeconomy and the push in the chemical

industry to develop green and

sustainable processes confirm the

strategic importance of biotechnology. In

this context, biotechnology is recognised

as providing the tools and expertise to

establish sustainable production routes

starting from renewable re-sources

rather than relying on fossil fuel sources.

We are looking very much forward to an

inspiring conference in Frankfurt in

September 2015.

On behalf of the Scientific Committee of

Bioflavour 2015,

Prof. Dr. Jens Schrader

More about Bioflavour 2015 can be

found on

http://bioflavour-conference.com

Event Highlight: Bioflavour 2015 Conference International Conference on Flavour and Fragrance Biotechnology

Upcoming Conferences & Events

2015

11 - 12 February 2015 Industrial Biotechnology

Showcase London(UK)

15-18 March 2015 Bacterial Electron Transfer

Processes and their Regulation Vimeiro (Portugal)

22-24 April 2015 8th Conference on

Recombinant Protein Production

Palma (Mallorca, Spain)

26 – 30 July 2015 12th BIOTRANS Congress

Vienna (Austria)

9-11 September 2015 Bioflavour 2015

Frankfurt Am Main (Germany)

2016

TBC – early 2016 3rd Meeting on Applied

Synthetic Biology in Europe Southern Europe

3-6 July 2016

17th European Congress on Biotechnology

Krakow (Poland)

Member’s input invited!

ECB17: Planning Phase Initiated

The 17th European Congress on Biotechnology will be held 3rd – 6th July 2016 in Krakow, Poland. The executive board of the EFB has begun planning of the ECB17. We would like to invite our EBBS sections members to send us suggestions for symposia topics. If you have any recommendations, please send them to the section co-chairs.

EBBS Newsletter 2015 ● Issue 1● Page 3

Abstract Deadline: 20th March 2015 More info here.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 2015 SynBio LEAP Fellows have been selected and include our latest board addition Dr. Jon Marles-Wright.

ttp://synbioleap.org/community/fellows/

Closing Date Job Title Location Job Reference

15.02.2015 15x Postdoctoral Research positions

University of Warwick (UK) – WISB

W-003682-a

15.02.2015 3x Research Fellow University of Warwick (UK) – WISB 75429-124 75430-124 75431-124

08.02.2015 8x Senior Experimental Officer

Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB)- SYNBIOCHEM

LSX-05797 LSX-05795 LSX-05796 LSX-05798 LSX-05794

03.02.2015 1x Postdoctoral research position (5 years)

Manchester Institute of Biotechnology LSX-05408

EBBS Newsletter 2015 ● Issue 1● Page 4

About this Newsletter: You receive a quarterly Newsletter as part of your membership with EBBS. If you do not wish to receive this Newsletter, send an email to Karsten Zimny karsten@efb-central.org to unsubscribe .

Beatrice V Vetter

PhD Student

University of Edinburgh

Beatrice.Vetter[at]ed.ac.uk

Twitter: @Bea_Viv

Do you want to get involved?

If you would like to be part of the new section,

or if you have an idea for a new meeting in an

area of bioengineering or bioprocessing, or

would like to assist in section activities, please

contact the section co-chairs:

Louise Horsfall

louise.horsfall[at]ed.ac.uk

Tim Overton

t.w.overton[at]bham.ac.uk

Funding Opportunities & Programmes

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Job Opportunities

New Biotechnology is the

official journal of the EFB

and is published bimonthly.

It covers both the science of

biotechnology and its

surrounding political,

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Impact Factor: 2.106 Recent Issue:

Synthetic Biotechnology (Volume 31, Issue 6, Pages

525-602)

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invited! If you have interesting

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in touch!

Email us:

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or

EBBS Communications Officer:

EuroTransBio (ETB)

http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/business/collaborative-research/tsb-competitions/ib-catalyst.aspx

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ATS279/research-fellow-75429-124 http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ATS274/research-fellow-75431-124 http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ATS284/research-fellow-75430-124

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Synthetic Biology in Action EMBO Practical Course http://www.embl.de/training/events/2015/SYN15-01/ Location & dates EMBL Heidelberg, Germany 8 - 20 Jun 2015 Deadlines Application - 12 Mar 2015

Funding Opportunities & Programmes

Organized by

Synthetic Biology BBSRC 2015

http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding

/opportunities/opportunities-

index.aspx

BBSRC 2015 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/opportunities/opportunities-index.aspx

Horizon2020 http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/home.html

IB Catalyst Registration deadline: 25 February 2015 http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/business/collaborative-research/tsb-competitions/ib-catalyst.aspx

http://synbioleap.org/community/fellows/

EMBO Practical Course: Synthetic Biology in Action

EMBL Heidelberg,Germany 8th – 20th June 2015

Application Deadline 12th March 2015

http://www.embl.de/training/events/2015/SYN15-01/