Biotechnology/Systems biology

China is the largest market for baby food with 50% of the world market volume. The German Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH now wants to develop this market for its human milk oligosaccharides and has signed a cooperation agreement with the Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group. Together with the Chinese market leader in dairy products, Jennewein intends to develop an infant formula and other dairy products specifically tailored to the Chinese market. In addition, the cooperation will further research the microbiome of newborns.

Last summer, heat and drought have afflicted farmers in many places and caused enormous harvest losses. The damage caused to farmers in Germany was estimated by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture at 770 million euros.
Extreme weather conditions make plants more susceptible to disease and pest infestation. This also endangers wheat production in Germany and large parts of Europe.

Too sweet, too salty, too fatty: Many foods contain ingredients that are unhealthy when consumed in excess. The food industry has long been under pressure to find alternatives: The cost of treating diet-related diseases such as heart, circulatory and metabolic diseases is around 17 billion euros a year.

“Anam­mox, a glob­ally im­port­ant mi­cro­bial pro­cess of the ni­tro­gen cycle rel­ev­ant for the earth’s cli­mate, does not work the way we as­sumed it did.” With these words, Boran Kartal from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen sums up a surprising discovery by the microbiologists: Together with colleagues, the Bremen researchers have for the first time discovered an anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing (short: "Anammox") bacterium that uses nitric oxide ("NO") to grow.

Hormones from the contraceptive pill turn male frogs into females, antibiotic residues promote the development of resistant bacteria: Numerous chemical compounds, in particular residues from pharmaceuticals, industry and agriculture, cause ecological problems when they enter the environment by way of water. This can can also have health consequences for humans. A new approach aims to make it easier to remove these so-called xenobiotics from wastewater in sewage treatment plants.

They are tiny and at home in many freshwaters: water fleas. The so-called daphnia are unique in that they react very sensitively to pollutants in the water. Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have therefore used these small crustaceans as a yardstick to investigate the pollution of freshwater ecosystems.

As part of its internationalization strategy, the Max Planck Society has established a new Max Planck Center in Great Britain: At the Max Planck-Bristol Center for Minimal Biology, researchers will construct artificial cytoskeletons, develop nano-scale molecular machines and thus study the necessary building blocks for life

More than half of all their products, namely 60%, are to be sustainable in 2021, promises German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas. This will be achieved by using recycled polyester - e.g., from plastic waste collected from beaches - and reused cotton as well as by delisting animal furs. The brand also already has vegan shoes in its range. A real innovation, however, is what the group will exclusively launch with three other fashion companies worldwide this year: Shoes made of a mushroom mesh instead of leather.