From 7-9 October 2008, the scientific conference European BioPerspectives is taking place for the first time in parallel with Biotechnica, a major European biotechnology show in Hannover
European BioPerspectives will celebrate the diversity of biotechnology and will focus in particular on industrial biotechnology, systems biology and biomedicine.
The keynote speakers taking part include several notable research scientists and pioneers in their respective fields.
For example, Stephen Minger (King's College, London), who recently made headline news with his work on the derivation and propagation of human stem cells from animal embryos, will be speaking on the potential of stem cell research; John Mattick (University of Queensland, Australia) will report on ongoing genome research, in particular on the impact of his recognition that small RNA molecules are of importance in the genetic programming of the human genome; Ruedi Aebersold (ETH, Zurich), who collaborated with Leroy Hood to establish the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, will speak about how his groundbreaking research into proteomes has influenced the development of systems biology.
Largely due to his work proteomic analysis has emerged as a valuable research tool.
Jason Chin (Cambridge University, UK) will convey to attendees something of the optimism and excitement of those working in synthetic biology.
He will talk about his breakthrough in the encoding of protein synthesis in bacteria, thus making it possible to incorporate synthetic amino acids in new engineered proteins.
Another keynote speaker is Stephen Mayfield (Scripps, La Jolla, USA), who is currently researching into how micro-algae, which have a high proportion of long chain fatty acids.
He will explain how they could be used to deliver new forms of biofuels and therapeutic proteins.
Charles Wyman, Ford Motor company chair in environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside, USA, will be reporting on the production of biofuel from cellulose based on the enzyme activity of ligno-cellulose.
The three-day programme also features well-established specialist conferences such as the Rebirth conference on regenerative medicine and the bio-pharmaceutical conference 'Science to Market' organised by the European Association of Pharma Biotechnology (EAPB).
Biocatalysis, bioenergy and process technology are keynote themes in a multifaceted program on industrial biotechnology that features the latest applications and interesting prospects such as the use of algae in fuel generation.
The DPWB presentation Germany's white biotechnology platform will afford an ideal opportunity to take stock of biotech developments and the state of the industry in the host nation, Germany.
One of the traditional events on the BioPerspectives programme is Schools Day, which offers a program staged by the VBIO (German Federation for Biology, Bioscience and Biomedicine) that is specifically geared to interest the many groups of visiting school students most of them at an age when they are thinking about their future career.
