InnOValley’s Post

💫 Exciting milestone alert for our startup! 💫 🧵🪡 🧪 The success of our early-stage startup is dependent on bold partnerships, collaboration, and non-dilutive funding as we develop our bio-based textiles and go-to-market strategy. We are pleased to share that Good Fibes has been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) BioEnergy Technologies Office SBIR Phase I grant. Our award, entitled “Additive Manufacturing of recombinant elastic proteins for sustainable non-woven textiles” will enable us to scale our bioprocess and explore the feasibility of developing a non-woven process. At Good Fibes we are developing high-performance biodegradable, protein-based raw materials for the textile industry to enable true textile circularity. We are excited to explore non-woven applications of our technology. Non-wovens can be advantageous for several reasons including reducing textile supply chain complexities and support the scalability of competitive alternatives to synthetic petroleum-derived materials. We are thankful to our researchers and collaborators, including sub-awardees at Tufts University and Argonne National Laboratory. The SBIR Phase I formalizes Good Fibes’ collaboration with Tufts and strengthens our collaborations at Argonne National Lab. Our cross-disciplinary team for the Phase I work includes co-founders Alexis N. Peña, Ph.D. and Lauren Blake, PhD and as well as Gyorgy Babnigg at Argonne and David Kaplan at Tufts. Critical to this work is understanding how next-generation material technology integrates into existing workflows. Annelise Payne, our material design consultant will support the project by offering industry insights in sustainable material design and development. This is a fantastic launch pad for us to continue advancing our high performance bio-based textile solutions. We are thrilled to be backed by DOE as we build towards a vital bioeconomy and reduce our reliance on petrochemicals. #sustainablefashion #textiles #materialinnovation #bioenergy #biopolymer #circularity

Economic growth depends on many things. One is productivity, which relies on innovation. This is overly simplistic, but a formula for world-changing innovation is discovery + invention + scalability. By “discovery” I mean a foundational revelation of a phenomenon – the kind that is often revealed through basic scientific research. In this context, “invention” means finding a method for producing a thing or process that performs something valuable. The final step to be world changing is finding a cost-effective method to replicate the process or produce the thing. While discoveries are worthy of celebrating, those celebrations often leave out the hard work required to turn them into scalable inventions for the benefit of billions of people. On this day (September 28) in 1928, Alexander Fleming (accidentally) discovered that a species of mold from the penicillium family was killing off Staphylococcus bacteria in a Petri dish. When he published his work in 1929, he named the species penicillin, writing that “for convenience and to avoid the repetition of the rather cumbersome phrase ‘Mould broth filtrate,’ the name ‘penicillin’ will be used.” The image shows a sample of the original mold. I put Fleming’s work in the “discovery” category because penicillium probably had this antibacterial property forever, but that alone doesn’t make it useful. In other words, merely seeing that a fungus kills bacteria isn’t the same as inventing a medicine that can be used under real-world conditions. Fleming knew this, but despite assembling a world-class team to do just that, it failed, with one team member concluding that “the production of penicillin for therapeutic purposes [was] almost impossible.” Fortunately, in 1939, Ernst Chain rediscovered Fleming’s paper. By 1940, with colleagues Howard Florey and Norman Heatley, they isolated the compound that was doing the work. By February 1941, human trials began, which showed its effectiveness. Unfortunately, scaling production was difficult. The team could only produce a few milligrams of penicillin each week, and amid World War II, British drug companies couldn’t help. Florey found a partner in the US Department of Agriculture, which set up a lab in Peoria, IL. It was a perfect match as the lab had the right equipment, expertise, and a ready supply of corn starch (which increases the yield of penicillin extracted from a given amount of mold broth). The lab even discovered that mold from rotting cantaloupes produced 6X the penicillin as Fleming’s mold. Initial discoveries of basic science can be of immense value, but the next time you use an antibiotic or any modern technological marvel, don’t forget about the talented people who participate in the rest of the innovation chain. Fun fact: It's more accurate to say that Fleming rediscovered penicillin. In 1897, Ernest AC Duchesne, while working for the French military, discovered its antibacterial properties while researching for his Ph.D. thesis.

🟢 BIOCEL, project by Elisava Research team member Laura Freixas will be present at 4YFN - Mobile World Congress (Mobile World Capital Barcelona). BIOCEL is an industrial research project that transforms waste organic matter into biofabricated filaments. The biodegradable filaments are obtained in a few weeks through a fermentation process, with low levels of thermal and electrical energy and without harmful chemicals. The material can be used to obtain elastic, rigid and hydrophobic filaments. BIOCEL is a patent pending production model with a product, service and system. This project is being promoted through Elisava Impuls, the programme of Elisava that wants to drive and accompany opportunities of the Elisava Ecosystem in order to impact the market, the planet and society through the generation of spin offs / startups or the projects’ licensing to the industry. Visit it at Stand: 8.1C34.5 (from February 26th-29th). BIOCEL is a project by the Clúster de Materials Avançats de Catalunya, and co-impulsed by MODACC, Elisava Facultat de Disseny i Enginyeria de Barcelona, FITEX, DAN*NA and LCI Education. #ElisavaResearch #ElisavaImpuls #MWC #4YFN #ResearchProject #OrganicMatter #Biofabrication

🌟 Thrilled to share my latest research publication! 🌟 I’m thrilled to share my latest research publication on vacuum evaporation coupled with anaerobic digestion. A mathematical model has been developed for ammonia recovery via vacuum evaporation from anaerobically digested sludge. Then, this model was used to integrate this technology with anaerobic digestion, shedding light on practical solutions for process intensification and sustainable nutrient recovery in wastewater treatment. A huge thank you to my incredible co-authors and collaborators who made this work possible! 🙏 If you're interested in wastewater treatment innovation, check out the full paper for more insights! Here is a link for the paper: https://lnkd.in/gytRidmf

It’s exciting to see biomanufacturing take center stage in TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of 2024. Biomanufacturing companies are leading the way with groundbreaking technologies that are reshaping how we produce, consume, and think about the world around us. We were thrilled to see so many bioproducts and solutions highlighted in this year’s list, including: - Google DeepMind with AlphaFold 3, revolutionizing drug discovery - Pivot Bio with N-Ovator, helping farmers reduce emissions - dsm-firmenich with Bovaer, cutting methane from cattle - TômTex Inc. with sustainable luxury leather made from biomaterials - Windfall Bio with methane-eating microbes to fight climate change - Wndr Alpine/Checkerspot with sustainable snowboards - Shiru with ProteinDiscovery.ai, advancing protein innovation - GALY with Literally Cotton, the lab-grown fabric of the future In the carousel below, we highlight the game-changing biomanufacturing innovations that are transforming agriculture, materials, medicine, and more. For the full story on the best inventions of 2024, you can read the article from TIME Magazine here: https://lnkd.in/ekZTJCpd Did we miss any key biomanufacturing innovations from this year's list or want to share your favorite one? Drop us a comment below! #biomanufacturing #bioeconomy #fermentation #precisionfermentation #deeptech #climatetech #sustainability #timeinventions2024 #timemagazine

Exciting day at the FAO Science and Innovation forum, with the main theme this year being «Inclusive Science and Innovation for Agrifood Systems Transformation, Leaving No One Behind». The forum is organized around three critical topics; Biotechnologies, Digital Agriculture and Community-Driven Innovations. Some key points Laura García Calvo García Calvo and I take home are: 1) These technologies hold a lot of potential to solve the challenges we see today! 2) These technologies are not stand-alone-we need to connect them with other solutions. 3) We need to develop these technologies TOGETHER with those who will benefit from it; meaning a bottom-up approach. Nofima FAO United Nations Nations World Food Forum

What do Michelin, Danone, DMC Biotechnologies, Inc., Crédit Agricole Centre France have in common? We know that innovation comes from our ability to look beyond old boundaries and join forces for what matters most. Today we are are teaming up with several public and private institutions to create the Biotech Open Platform and bolster the development of advanced fermentation process. This will enable us to produce bio-based materials, one of the more promising alternative to fossil-based resources. Scaling-up is the defining moment in each innovation journey. Our platform will soon offer two production lines, a unique tool to enhance the development of new materials. It will be located in Clermont Ferrand within the Parc Cataroux Center for Sustainable Materials. We are convinced that disruptive partnerships across industries is the way to make progress on the most pressing challenges we are collectively facing right now. https://lnkd.in/eGenNzaX

5th International Bioeconomy Congress The fifth Bioeconomy Congress will take place from September 18th to 19th, 2024 in the Schwabenlandhalle in Fellbach. The event, organized by the state government of Baden-Württemberg, is an ideal platform for exchanging information about the current developments and future potential of the bioeconomy. Companies from various industries have the opportunity to find out about innovative technologies and sustainable business models and to make valuable contacts. The 2024 Bioeconomy Congress is all about the transformation towards a bio-based economy based on sustainable and resource-saving processes. The organizers want to bring together leading experts from science, business and politics to discuss solutions to the challenges of the future. The program includes the following items: Keynote lectures on the role of the bioeconomy in various areas. Panel session on in-depth topics such as startups, bioprocess engineering or sustainable living. Discussion rounds to classify the results of the day. Networking over shared dinners and breaks. Our technology transfer manager Florian Stark will give a lecture on the first day of the congress entitled “Navigation aid for start-ups: support options at a glance”. This will take place as part of panel session 1 in the Mörike room. He will also be available to you as a contact person throughout the day. The congress offers companies a unique opportunity to find out about new technological trends and to find concrete starting points for their own business development. Whether in production, product development or innovation management - the bioeconomy offers a wide range of approaches for sustainable growth and competitive advantages.