TU Dortmund (www.tu-dortmund.de) is among the winners of the competition “Bio.NRW” of the NRW-Ministry of Innovation. With the Chair of Technical Biochemistry (headed by Professor Andreas Schmid) in charge, TU-scientists together with their colleagues from the Research Center Jülich are going to develop a new technology platform for the field biocatalysis over the next three years. The Ministry of Innovation funds this project with overall 843,000 euros – 540,000 of that for TU Dortmund.
Whole cell biocatalysis plays an essential role in industrial biotechnology. It is applied for the production of complex and environmentally friendly biomaterials which can be used, for example, in the chemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetical or food industry. The central idea of the technology platform “Biocatalysis” is the optimized utilization of microbial metabolism for the implementation of fine chemical syntheses. The new technology platform is to be integrated into the North-Rhine-Westphalian cluster for industrial biotechnology, CLIB2021. In this cluster, large-scale enterprises like Bayer, Cognis, Evonik, Henkel or Lanxess as well as innovative small and medium-scale enterprises are organized.
The competition “BioNRW” of the Ministry of Innovation, which took place for the first time in 2008, is to fund research and development in industrial biotechnology. The first competition round has ended and the next invitation starts this September. 15 partners from universities, research institutions and enterprises accepted the first competition invitation.