acib - THE AUSTRIAN CENTRE OF INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY

THE AUSTRIAN CENTRE
OF INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY

acib is an international competence centre, developing new, environmentally friendly, economically and technically advanced processes for the biotechnological, pharmaceutical and chemical industry – all of them modelled on nature. acib is bridging the gap between academic research and producing industry. The big advantage for acib partner organisations is the possibility to translate scientific results into concrete processes and product by using scientific know-how, academic infrastructure or industrial networks. Our platform offers tailor-made solutions for our stakeholders from Academia, Industry and Investors.

LATEST BLOG ARTICLES

P450 CYPs and Capsaicin – a hot new way of simulating drug-metabolism outside the human body

Have you ever wondered, why it often takes many years until a new drug is available at your local pharmacy? One of the reasons is that the pharmaceutical industry wants to make sure that the drug is not only effective but also doesn’t produce toxic breakdown products that lead to undesireable side effects. Therefore, many time-consuming and not seldomly expensive tests are required to know precisely, which possible metabolic by-products could emerge. In a next step, the industry is producing such derivates to test them thoroughly for their side-effects, ensuring one goal: the patients health and wellbeing.

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Biosensors for blood grouping

Biosensors may soon facilitate the analysis of a patient’s entire red blood cell antigen repertoire. In the form of diagnostic test strips, they could make the analysis swift and location-independent. This could have enormous potential not only in medical diagnosis, but also for environmental analysis if extended to other analytes.

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Insights into crowdfunding

Crowdfunding became known around 2005/06 in the creative industries. To cope with illegal downloads in the music industries, money was raised before publishing. However, the concept of crowdfunding is much older. In 1885 the Statute of Liberty would not have been completed without a newspaper-led campaign (by Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World) that attracted 160,000 donors.

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Presentation Design: a worthwhile investment of time for scientists?

Conference season has already started and scientists begin to mingle and present their latest achievements. The lecture rooms are flooded with an overwhelming number of data sets and graphs and crowded PowerPoint slides are the norm. What makes the difference between a good and an excellent presentation is not only the content and the speaker, but also the design of the presentation itself. But, do scientist really have time for that?

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Introducing microbiome researchers

Microorganisms play a crucial role for the health and well-being of higher organisms. Host-specific microbial communities of varying complexity form the so-called microbiota. It can consist of several thousand microbial species and includes bacteria, archaea and fungi. These microorganisms exchange a plethora of metabolites with their hosts and can modulate their functioning. Such interactions equally affect humans, animals and plants. This provides us with novel strategies to counteract various diseases and increase the resistance of higher organisms towards abiotic and biotic stresses by modulating the microbiota.

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Do not fear the shear!

Since the early days of bioprocess engineering shear associated protein aggregation was believed to be a real thread for proteins causing a decrease in production yield accompanied by higher costs. Although some research indicated that moderate shear rates do not aggregate proteins, the scientific consensus today is still not aligned. Recent results suggested that elongational forces, very similar to shear, can unfold proteins. Hence, there is a strong demand for a technical solution to describe extraordinary high shear rates and investigate their impact on protein aggregation, to answer this unsolved mystery in bioprocess engineering.

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Poster Design: Inner values count but good looks do no harm!

The last conference I attended had 455 poster presentations divided into 3 designated poster sessions (2 hours each). If we do the math, this would leave one with less than a minute for reading each and every poster. Of course, this is not how poster sessions work; however, it nicely illustrates how much competition you face as a poster presenter. Designing your poster well can give you an edge when it comes to getting recognition for your work.

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Understanding the mechanisms of membrane transport proteins

Membrane transport proteins play a key role in several metabolic pathways. They transport either actively or passively ions or biomolecules, such as metabolites, across the membranes. The construction of efficient cell factories, to produce valuable metabolites, requires a deeper understanding of transport capabilities. However, to understand these mechanisms, suitable protein production systems and membrane-like environments need to be developed in which full protein functionality is maintained.

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Schlafen Cyanobakterien in der Nacht?

Nacht ist die Zeit in der sich die Sonne ,,vor uns versteckt‘‘. Sobald es dunkel wird sagt uns unsere innere Uhr, dass wir schlafen gehen sollen. Unser Körper braucht den Schlaf um sich für die nächste helle Periode, also für den nächsten Tag, vorzubereiten. Auch in der Tierwelt folgen viele Arten diesem Rhythmus. Aber was tun die mikroskopisch kleinen Lebewesen auf dieser Erde? Gehen sie auch in der Nacht schlafen?

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The use of CHO cells for biopharmaceutical production – the dilemma of clonality

CHO cells have become the most important cell system for the biotechnological production of pharmaceuticals. Reasons for that are described in the article The increasing potential of chinese hamster ovary cells. A critical feature of a cell line used for production of therapeutics is to be clonal, which means origination from a single cell, to ensure a homogenous therapeutic product. The demonstration of clonal derivation can be a big effort for the pharmaceutical industry, but does it really ensure a homogenous product quality?

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K2 RESEARCH CENTRE

acib is funded as a K2 research centre in the framework of FFG COMET funding (Competence Centres for Excellent Technologies) by BMVIT, BMWF, and the provinces of Styria, Vienna, Lower Austria and Tyrol. The COMET programme is processed via FFG. 18 scientific partners are involved in the implementation of the acib COMET programme, which is co-funded by 53 industrial partners.

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COMPANY PROFILE AND OWNERS

acib is an industrially oriented private limited company with a non-profit orientation. It is publicly owned by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Graz University of Technology, University of Graz, University of Innsbruck and Joanneum Research GmbH.