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.

Experts from industry expect the global bioplastics production capacity to increase from around 4.2 million tonnes in 2016 to 6.1 million tonnes in 2021, mainly in consumer goods and applications in the transport sector.

Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT Biomedical from the town of Sulzbach have discovered that alginate appears to be the ideal breeding ground for the propagation of pluripotent stem cells. The two types of algae are known as Lessonia trabeculata and Lessonia nigrescens and grow on Chile’s coasts. For the drug tests of the future, the pharma industry and medical research needs large quantities of pluripotent stem cells.

An oil slick measuring 10,000 square metres endangered marine animals, sea birds and costal inhabitants. Until now, oil spills have been cleaned up by burning the oil, or using dispersion materials, which decompose the oil with the use of chemicals. These methods have been controversial for a long time because they equally pollute the environment. According to environmental scientists, the dispersant chemicals used can cause genetic mutation and cancer, adding to the toxicity of the spill. 

And now, researchers from a wastewater treatment plant in Rotenburg an der Fulda have shown that algae can also clean waste water. The cleaning abilities of algae were demonstrated during the Hessian pilot project “phosphorus removal by microalgae”. The research project has been funded by the Hessian Ministry for the Environment, Climate Change, Agriculture and Consumer Protection together with the public utilities of Rotenburg since 2015 over a two-year period with a total of €620,000.

Following the successful completion of another round of funding on the crowdfunding platform Startnext, the start-up GloW efficiency off-grid GmbH wants to offer the stove yaMbao that was originally designed for use in developing countries, to the German barbequing market. The barbeque gadget runs on uncarbonised, dry, and chunky biomass e.g. pellets, wood, or chopped wood. This is much more efficient and environmental friendly than using charcoal or fossil fuels.