“Only when we have properly understood our oceans, can we begin to use them sustainably and protect them better,” said Federal Research Minister Johanna Wanka at the official opening of the Year of Science in Berlin in early June. She also used the opportunity to present the federal government’s new programme on marine research (MARE:N), which wants to invest more than four billion euros in the future of the oceans over the next ten years.

In its 81st year, the world’s largest trade fair of its kind has met a record: 1,660 exhibitors from 65 countries are represented this year at the annual event. The Green Week, however, is not just about displaying culinary delights from all over the world; the bioeconomy has also found a firm foothold at the international exhibition. Once again visitors will be convinced at how biobased raw materials are becoming increasingly more common in our daily lives at the specialist trade fair within the Green week for bioeconomy – nature.tec in Hall 4.2.

Over the past ten years, an international team of plant scientists have put great faith in decoding the wheat genome. Now the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) has announced that that it will be able to present the complete sequence of bread wheat by 2017. The scientists are convinced that the knowledge of the molecular blueprint of the crop will spur the development of new resistant and high-yielding varieties of wheat.

Now further growth will be financed through the stock exchange. The bioeconomy pioneers from Zwingenberg had speculated on a possible floatation for a long time, and now it’s definite. On 5th January, Brain AG officially announced their IPO plans and in contrast to many other German biotech companies, have decided to float on the Frankfurt stock exchange. “We see ourselves as an icebreaker for the bioeconomy in the financial centre Frankfurt,” CEO Jürgen Eck emphasises to biotechnologie.de.

In Germany, the majority of this precious mineral ends up as fertilizer for arable land. A neglected source of phosphate is animal meal, which is produced from slaughterhouse waste and subsequently fed to livestock or incinerated. Now researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF in Magdeburg have developed a new method to recover the important mineral from the animal meal.

Currently, genome editing has mostly been earmarked for medical applications, but its use in plant breeding could potentially be very promising. However, there is the controversial question of whether plants that have been subject to genome editing will fall under the GMO bracket. According to international scientists, among them Detlef Weigel of the German Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, this won’t be the case.

The hidden part of the plant – the tuberous root – that makes up 30% of the plant, however, is discarded. In Europe alone, 800,000 tonnes of chicory roots are generated during the production of chicory salad each year. Currently, after harvesting the chicory leaves, the roots are disposed of as compost or in biogas plants. Wanting to make use of the waste, researchers at the University of Hohenheim have now succeeded in generating hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) from the chicory plant’s discarded roots.

The sky farm, or vertical farming, will not only provide the town’s residents with fresh vegetables, the scientists are also developing greenhouses for astronauts in space. As part of their research to build the greenhouses, engineers from DLR have already grown dozens of lettuces under a pink light in a sterilized laboratory. The greenhouses contain combined life-support systems and do not require soil, but hang in the air whilst their roots are constantly sprayed with a solution containing nutrients.

The subscription period for the bioeconomy specialists’ shares ended on 3 February. It is expected that the shares will be admitted to trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 5 February, with the first listing scheduled for 9 February. Based on the final offer price of 9 euros per share, the company has announced that from the 32.5 million euros raised, it will receive gross proceeds of 31.5 million euros. Now with Brain AG’s IPO, the number of German listed biotech companies in Frankfurt will increase to 16.

Sodium is found naturally and in abundance in nature as table salt. In the search for improved materials for this new generation of batteries, researchers from Ulm Helmholtz Institute of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have struck lucky – on the compost heap. They have developed carbon-based active material for the negative electrodes from apple bio waste. For the positive electrodes, a material made out of layered oxides is used to create the positive cathodes.