Italian Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and Bioeconomy IFIB 2014

The 4th edition of the Italian Forum on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioeconomy - IFIB  was held in Genova, Italy on 25th – 26th September, 2014. This workshop organized by Assobiotec - the Italian Association for the development of biotechnology – together with Innovhub-SSI, the Italian Biocatalysis Center, Chamber of Commerce of Genova – aimed at making a survey of research projects in the industrial biotechnology field with the goal to strengthen the network in the Euro-Mediterranean area and to promote industry-university partnerships. Together with the principal organizators, IAMC-CNR has co-organised the event, with special attention to the session on Marine Biotechnology with the contribution of two projects, RITMARE and the Marine Biotechnology ERA-NET (ERA-MBT).

Moreover, the programm included a wide variety of topics, Life Science, Environment, Energy, Biorefinery,Bio-based Chemistry, Biocatalysis, Agro-food, Technology Transfer and a round table on "Investing in Bioeconomy".

In parallel, a specific session of pre-organised one to one meetings was carried out for initiating face to face contacts between companies, universities and researchers from Europe.

The lectures related to the Marine Biotechnology session described firstly a general view of Marine Biotechnology underliyng successfull stories and  perspectives. The mission of ERA-MBT was as well presented. The Euro-Mediterranean scenario was discussed, in particular, the discrepancy between the high potential of Mediterranean sea biodiversity and gaps on the knowledge and in the level of MBT patents in Europe. The analyses of the bottlenecks for the development of Biotechnologies and opportunities offered by the The European Marine Biological Resource Centre as a useful infrastructure to the Blue Biotech Industry were also showed.

The ppt presentations (Torger Børresen, Laura Giuliano, Weibe Kooistra, George Sakellaris) are available on the website www.assobiotec.it.