Suc­cess­ful start of the new con­fer­ence series ​“Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy For­um” in Munich

The ​“Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy For­um” (IBF) is a new inter­na­tion­al plat­form for present­a­tion and dis­cus­sion ini­ti­ated by the IBB Net­zwerk GmbH (IBB) and the Research Cen­ter for Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy of the Tech­nic­al Uni­ver­sity of Munich (TUM). On 14^th and 15^th March 2016, the IBF 2016 suc­cess­fully star­ted in Garch­ing near Munich. About 170 par­ti­cipants came togeth­er in the TUM-Depart­ment of Mech­an­ic­al Engin­eer­ing, and 16 inter­na­tion­al sci­ent­ists from academy and enter­prises presen­ted recent devel­op­ments and new sci­entif­ic res­ults from cent­ral sec­tors of Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy. Some of the attendees were invited as key­note speak­ers, oth­ers were recruited in a selec­tion pro­cess based on sub­mit­ted abstracts. Besides this, 62 sci­entif­ic posters were presen­ted and the event was com­ple­men­ted by three industry booths and a com­pre­hens­ive expos­i­tion of the joint pro­ject ​“Advanced Bio­mass Value” about algae research. The man­aging dir­ect­or Prof. Zorbas from the IBB Net­zwerk GmbH is delighted: ​“The suc­cess of the first IBF con­fer­ence out­ranged our expect­a­tions! We received pos­it­ive and con­struct­ive feed­back from many par­ti­cipants. The IBF 2016 is a prom­ising start of the con­fer­ence series and we are look­ing for­ward to resume the event in March 2018.” The open­ing of the IBF 2016 was strongly backed by high-level aca­dem­ic and polit­ic­al rep­res­ent­at­ives: After a short intro­duc­tion of the organ­izers Prof. Zorbas (IBB) and Prof. Weuster-Botz (TUM), the wel­com­ing speeches were held by TUM Pres­id­ent Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang A. Her­rmann and Dr. Ron­ald Mertz, Dir­ect­or in the Bav­ari­an Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs. Dir­ectly fol­low­ing, the sci­entif­ic ses­sions on tail­or­ing of enzymes and on the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of new path­ways for indus­tri­al applic­a­tions encour­aged an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary and lively exchange among all par­ti­cipants up to the poster ses­sion and the con­fer­ence din­ner in the even­ing. Fur­ther­more, the first con­fer­ence day was recor­ded for a film report­ing on chan­nel hyper​raum​.tv. On the second day, the sci­entif­ic focus was on pro­cess improve­ments, new tech­no­lo­gies and their indus­tri­al imple­ment­a­tions. After the last ses­sion, the three win­ners of poster awards sponsored by Spring­er-Ver­lag were announced. The event closed with tours to the TUM-Pilot Plant for Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy in Garch­ing and the TUM-Algae Plant in Otto­brunn. Since the interest in the con­fer­ence tours was unex­pec­tedly high, two groups had to be organ­ized. In con­clu­sion and des­pite the new format, the sci­entif­ic net­work of the TUM-Research Cen­ter for Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy togeth­er with the expert­ise in organ­iz­ing events and the part­ner net­work of the IBB Net­zwerk GmbH enabled a great launch­ing con­fer­ence. We thank all who con­trib­uted to the IBF 2016, spe­cial thanks to the TUM-Research Cen­ter for Indus­tri­al Bio­tech­no­logy, all speak­ers, and our media part­ners! Source: IBB Net­zwerk GmbH/​ki