Bioeconomy

Diatoms as a biorefinery - 05/05/2023

Microalgae: sustainable chemical production in a mini factory

Renewable raw materials that can be used as alternatives to fossil resources already exist. However, to turn them into everyday products, plant oils and other renewable raw materials not only have to be extracted, but often have to undergo complex chemical processing. Researchers at the University of Konstanz have now converted microalgae cells into tiny refineries to produce and upgrade raw materials, creating a supply of sustainable chemicals.

At the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes CBP in Leuna, Germany, representatives from politics, research and industry opened a novel pilot plant for the mild processing of rapeseed to increase the added-value potential of rape as a raw material.

Vaccination for plants - 23/01/2023

Dialogue instead of a chemical maze – new strategy for sustainable crop protection

Climate change creates stress. This provides an opportunity for pests to exploit plant weaknesses and reproduce. For the infested plant, this can be catastrophic and often fatal. But instead of continuing to protect harvest yields with toxic substances as before, the transnational DialogProTec project is now taking a completely new approach: researchers want to intervene in the communication between plants and pests to keep them healthy.

A viscous biopaste that is easy to process, solidifies quickly and is suitable for producing even complex structures using the 3D printing process has been developed by a research team headed by Prof. Dr. Marie-Pierre Laborie from the Chair of Forest Biomaterials at the University of Freiburg. The wood-based biodegradable synthetic could potentially be used in lightweight construction, amongst other things.

For hundreds of millions of years plants have had the ability to harness carbon dioxide from the air using solar energy. The Max Planck research network MaxSynBio is on the trail of building artificial cells as sustainable green bioreactors. The research team led by Tobias Erb from the Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg has now succeeded in developing a platform for the automated construction of cell-sized photosynthesis modules.

CRISPR/Cas9 and genetic engineering laws - 27/11/2019

Transgene-free plant breeding using genome editing

Plant geneticists from Tübingen have used genome deletion to breed a variety of tomato that is resistant to powdery mildew. The CRISPR/Cas9 technology that they used enabled them to achieve this in a relatively short period of time. They also demonstrated beyond any doubt that the new tomato variety contains no foreign DNA and is indistinguishable from naturally occurring deletion mutants.

Article - 26/11/2018

Innovations to facilitate a greener world

The Second Global Bioeconomy Summit, held in Berlin in April 2018, confirmed the essential role of modern genetic engineering methods such as genome editing in producing heat- and drought-tolerant crops adapted to the changing climate. Such methods are clearly required to help achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Article - 22/08/2011

Can the stress tolerance of moss be transferred to maize and other plants?

The moss Physcomitrella patens has long since been one of several popular model organisms used in research. The Physcomitrella patens genome was sequenced in 2007. Comparative analyses with other plant species show why the relatives of the moss were able to colonise land approximately 500 million years ago the moss relatives developed a large number of mechanisms to protect them against drought and other stress factors which made them real…

Article - 15/08/2011

Artificial seed germination and premature ageing

Farmers expect sugar-beet seeds to be of the highest quality. Seed producers such as Einbeck-based KWS SAAT AG use complex technologies to ensure that seeds start germinating immediately after sowing even under unfavourable environmental conditions. One of the techniques used by KWS SAAT AG involves a special method of seed preparation to ensure immediate germination. However the disadvantage of this special type of pretreatment is that the seeds…

Article - 02/05/2011

Intelligent adhesives inspired by nature

Boston ivy ivy and other woody vines have unusually strong adhesive forces. The question researchers are asking is can they transfer the surface adhesion principle of ivy to technical applications? The Plant Biomechanics Group led by Prof. Dr. Thomas Speck in Freiburg is working on one project that focuses on using nature as a model for intelligent adhesive bonds.

Dossier - 12/10/2009

A green view - plant genome research

Research into the plant genome reveals many fundamental mechanisms some of which are also found in animals and human beings. Research increases the possibility of application in particular for the improvement of food animal feed and energy plants. However there is more to it than just transgenic plants.

Article - 24/09/2009

Making sense of a huge conglomeration of base pairs

Prof. Dr. Ralf Reski and his team at the University of Freiburg have made considerable contributions to the analysis of the genome of the moss Physcomitrella patens. However the researchers are aware that the base pair sequence still has many gaps and errors. But how do the researchers manage to navigate around the chaos of millions of letters base pairs and sentence fragments DNA fragments?

Dossier - 18/09/2009

From plants to plastics

In these times of changing climate sustainable thinking and the growing desire to become less dependent on crude oil the interest in biobased plastics is growing. Biobased plastics can be either entirely or partially produced from renewable resources using biotechnological methods.

Article - 03/03/2009

Protein communicates information about stress

During evolution plants had to learn to cope with stress factors such as drought or high salt concentrations in soil. Biologists working with Professor Dr. Ralf Reski and Dr. Wolfgang Frank at the University of Freiburg in cooperation with British researchers have discovered a protein involved in the transfer of information about environmental stress to the nucleus. It appears that this protein has an important role to play in the plants ability…

Press release - 03/03/2009

An inconspicuous relative

Prof. Ralf Reski and his team of scientists at the University of Freiburg have been dealing with the function of moss for many years. The plant biologist has now uncovered impressive evidence of the relationship between mosses and other organisms.

Alternative energy sources are increasingly gaining in importance. Several teams of researchers including scientists from the University of Karlsruhe are using different strategies to increase hydrogen production in algae. These might then become environment-friendly low-cost suppliers of energy.

Scientists from Freiburg have made a significant contribution to deciphering the moss genome. The challenging sequencing job was accomplished using state-of-the-art bioinformatics methods under the leadership of the Freiburg scientist Dr. Stefan Rensing.