AMSilk's biotech spider silk proteins are already used in a range of products. Just last year, the world's first commercial supplier of biotech silk polymers raised a multi-million investment from new investors to expand its market presence outside Europe.

Fertilization practices, monocultures or animal husbandry are to blame: With a share of 8% of Germany's greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture is a major contributor to climate change. At the same time, the agricultural sector is feeling the consequences of global warming among the hardest. Thanks to the breeding of new varieties, agricultural productivity has been demonstrably increased. However, it was previously unclear what effect the advances in plant breeding in recent decades have had on the carbon footprint.

The Xylosolv research project has developed the extraction of xylan from beech wood from laboratory scale to pilot plant. In 2025, a biorefinery yet to be built will finally produce the valuable carbohydrates on an industrial scale. At the same time, the process can also make the wood component lignin usable.

Tobacco plant leaves are more tolerant than expected: A research team from the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg has been able to demonstrate that the leaf cells can cope with astonishingly high saline concentrations. In addition, the experts showed that the underlying mechanism is different from that in roots - and superior to that in the case of briefly elevated salt concentrations. This has great significance for agriculture, as many crops react to high salt concentrations by limiting their growth and thus their yield.

Mosquitoes can make spending time outdoors miserable - especially if you don't have a suitable insect repellent to hand. There are sprays or creams that are supposed to keep the insects away. But if you spend a lot of time outdoors, you need to renew your protection regularly. Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have now found a way to make the protection last not just hours, but even days.

The new Packaging Act, which came into force in January 2019, paved the way for more bio-based packaging and increased recycling rates. In particular, the recycling of plastic packaging takes on a high priority. Single-use plastic products such as eating utensils or drinking straws have been banned throughout the EU since last year and have since been gradually replaced with sustainable materials. However, reusable products such as beverage bottles are also made of plastics and are largely disposed of or incinerated at the end of their life cycle.

Chemistry without hazardous waste and greenhouse gases - that is the goal of the future cluster "Electrification of Technical Organic Syntheses" (ETOS). Modern life would be completely unimaginable without chemical products, and some synthesis processes simply do not work without environmentally harmful starting materials, high energy input and expensive catalysts. The potential of organic electrosynthetic processes, on the other hand, promises more sustainable and less expensive alternatives. ETOS aims to leverage this potential.

The World Biodiversity Council's (IPBES) first global state of biodiversity report in 2019 was a wake-up call. The 1,500-page report showed the global community for the first time how dramatically biodiversity has changed in recent decades and why. But the IPBES report only covers species that have already been scientifically described. Despite the most intensive research, 80% remain undiscovered.

For agriculture, it is important that crops are as high-yielding as possible and robust against diseases. Breeding aims to pass on useful properties of plants. But in plant breeding, these useful traits are often lost if the genes on the chromosomes are too far apart. Using the molecular gene scissors CRISPR-Cas, researchers can specifically modify or switch off genes.