Biotechnology

You may have heard of the bioeconomy and wondered what it is all about. Discover it now!

It is only two centuries since the concept of selective breeding was applied scientifically to farm animals, helping produce cows, sheep and goats with traits such as lean muscles, disease resistance and efficient reproduction.

Meet the world's top vaccine experts and have your say on the future of EU vaccine research funding

Around one quarter of all prescribed pharmaceuticals in the developed world are derived from plants, including well-known drugs such as morphine and codeine. Harvesting plants to derive such medicines can be slow, wasteful and very expensive, yet often no synthetic alternative exists.

Ethanol is relatively easy to produce and can be used in existing engines. However, the so-called first-generation technology currently used to produce ethanol is energy-inefficient, offering slim carbon savings over gasoline, and it relies on edible crops such as maize and sugar beet, which some scientists argue could drive up global food prices.

The Directorate-General for Research & Innovation is organising five symposia at this year's AAAS annual meeting.

Natural rubber is a unique raw material with a whole range of applications. To reduce the current dependence on the rubber tree which mainly grows in Asia, a European substitute is vital.

A European Union funded research project has opened up a radical new era in the world of vaccine discovery and production. Focused on veterinary vaccines, the project’s work has made possible a dramatically faster and more effective route to the creation of vaccines to combat some of the most devastating diseases affecting farm livestock.

The market for bio-products or bio-based goods has grown sharply over the past few years as consumers embrace foods, fuels, medicines and other products made from renewable biological resources. However, the emerging appetite for bio-products is being held back by bottlenecks in manufacturing, with many processing methods taking far too long and costing too much.

A European research project is helping pinpoint the industrial jams, raising hopes that the supply of bio-products can match the soaring demand.

What’s in Horizon 2020 for you? What are the new calls and how to apply for funding?
We invite you to the Info Day 2014 in Brussels, on 17 January, to get first-hand information on the new EU funding instrument and to find the answer to these and many other questions.

Gillian Hendy is an Electrochemist at MIT, Langer lab, USA. She was granted a Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Fellowship. The MSCA funding enables her to acquire new skills and gain new knowledge in a leading organisation outside Europe.

The goal of the Human Brain Project is to build a completely new information computing technology infrastructure for neuroscience and for brain-related research in medicine and computing, catalysing a global collaborative effort to understand the human brain and its diseases and ultimately to emulate its computational capabilities.

Chalmers University of Technology SE) has been honored to coordinate one of the EU's biggest ever EU science project – Graphene Flagship – and time has come to take the super-material out from the research labs and into everyone's lives.

In this video Jie Sun, Assistant Professor at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, shows how he manufactures scalable and high-performing solid Graphene samples – the raw material for the over 100 research groups within the Graphene Flagship.

University of Technology (Sweden).
Thanks to: Jie Sun and Niclas Lindvall, Microtechnology & Nanoscience, Quantum Device Physics Laboratory
Narrator: Maria Abrahamsson, Chemical & Biological Engineering
Music: Björn Olsson
Animations: iStock, BOID
Video created by Torgil Störner, Communications & Marketing, "Chalmers