Networking platforms
These platforms are set-up in research and science topics which are highly active and of interest for the Swiss biotech industry and academia members. These platforms organize meetings, workshops, conferences and kick-start pre-competitive research projects with seed funding:
Antibiotics
Platform Leader – Markus Seeger – biotechnet link
Three National Research Programmes (NRPs) have been approved by the Federal Council. One aims to study ways of improving the Swiss health care system. Another will help in fighting the upsurge in antibiotic resistance.
Swiss Industrial Biocatalysis Consortium
Platform Leader – Steven Hanlon
Go to industrial biotech page
Vision
The Swiss Industrial Biocatalysis Consortium (SIBC) is an industrial consortium focusing on the Swiss economic space through an integration of brains and ideas.
- Through its actions, the SIBC promotes biocatalysis in the manufacturing industry, enabling the creation of new products, processes and ultimatively new businesses.
- Through its action the SIBC facilitates the access to biotechnological tools for enterprises intending to use them for the production of organic chemicals and biochemicals.
The diversity of its industrial members, representing the pharma, fine chemicals, fragrance and flavor and agrochemical sectors, is a major strength of the SIBC and the sharing of pre-competitive knowledge and experiences is a key element and offering of the SIBC activity.
Mission
- The SIBC is open to any Swiss company planning or actively pursuing biocatalysis.
- The activities of the SIBC are characterized by a pragmatic approach and a high degree of trust among its members.
- Pre-competitive information and know-how exchange. facilitates exchange and bundles local forces It practices the exchange of strains, enzymes and DNA sequence information encoding enzymes among its members.
- Exchange of industrially relevant biocatalysis information is not shared with third parties.
- The SIBC represents its industrial members in interactions with other similar national and international organizations.
- The SIBC creates visibility for its members nationally (SUCHCAT, Innovationsraum Biokatalyse), interna-tionally (e.g workshops at the Biotrans Conferences) and by periodically publishing position papers
Meetings typically take place twice a year and include guest-presentations from academia or industry. A “Tools, Tricks and Tips” round was also introduced in which members can pose questions on technical and regulatory issues. Developments in bioinformatics including artificial intelligence and machine learning are examples of developments actively observed by the SIBC.
Biocatalysis and biosynthesis
Platform Principles – led by Rebecca Buller – biotechnet link
Economic biosynthesis of biomolecules and polymers involves a broad palette of biotechnological competences, ranging from protein engineering and strain construction, metabolic engineering, fermentation/cell cultivation and downstream processing to polymer- and bioanalytics. However, general and straight forward strategies to best produce specific biomolecules.The biotechnet platform Biosynthesis with its members from the different academic institutions provides the necessary know how to solve specific biosynthetic problems together with industry.
Bioresource technologies
Platform Principals – led by Philippe Corvini – biotechnet link
Communications on the fundamentals, applications and management of are part of Bioresource Technologies. Awareness goal is to advance and disseminate knowledge in all the related areas of biomass, biological waste treatment, bioenergy, biotransformations and bioresource systems analysis, and technologies associated with conversion or production.
Topics include:
- Biofuels: liquid and gaseous biofuels production, modeling and economics
- Bioprocesses and bioproducts: biocatalysis and fermentations
- Biomass and feedstocks utilization: bioconversion of agro-industrial residues
- Environmental protection: biological waste treatment
- Thermochemical conversion of biomass: combustion, pyrolysis, gasification, catalysis.
In vitro diagnostics
Platform Leader – Marc Pfeifer and Dieter Ulrich – biotechnet link
Collaborative platform that promotes technological innovation in the area of in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) by providing access to a network of experts and seed money to advance project ideas. Events to exchange know-how and company visits further enable the translational research from academia to industry.
Personalized medicine
Platform Leader – Silke Schneider – biotechnet link
Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combines computer science, statistics, mathematics, and engineering to analyze and interpret biological data. Bioinformatics has been used for in silico analyses of biological queries using mathematical and statistical techniques. Source: Wikipedia
Single-use technology
Platform Principals – led by Regine Eibl – biotechnet link
Mission and Operations:
an attractive, internationally recognized research partner in the field of single-use technolgy and the european leading house for training courses with students and professionals, which focus on single-use technology and its application (USP, DSP, formulation and filling) in biopharmaceutical development and production processes
First common activites (e.g., organization of the Biotech conferences about single-use technology, encyclopedia of terms of single-use technology) with the DECHEMA working group “Single-use Technology in Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing” which was founded in 2010 and currently has 85 members
Events of Platform planned for 2016
Advanced training course “Cell expansion and protein expression: An introduction for standard and single-use bioreactors” (8.-26. August 2016)
Biotech 2016 “Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing and Single-Use Technologies”
(5.-7. September 2016)
The Swiss Biotech Association’s community platform enables direct exchange between members and working groups as featured on this very page.
Tissue engineering for drug development
Platform Leader – Michael Ragunath – biotechnet link
The TEDD Competence Centre is a collaborative innovation platform, dedicated to 3D cell culture technology and organ-like tissue models for drug development, substance testing, personalized and regenerative medicine. The network pools and transfers knowledge and technologies in order to promote the further development and routine application of 3D cell culture.
Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physicochemical factors to improve or replace biological functions. While it was once categorized as a sub-field of biomaterials, having grown in scope and importance it can be considered as a field in its own right. Source; Wikipedia
Organ-like human tissue models are an important tool for drug development and evaluation of active substances. The TEDD national competence centre pools and transfers knowledge and technologies in order to promote the further development and application of in vitro cell and tissue culture.
Training for pharma/biotech
Platform Leader – Daniel Gygax – biotechnet link
Training for Pharma/Biotech offers customer-specific training modules in biopharmaceutical production.
Translational and clinical bio-manufacturing
Platform Leader – Steffen Zeisberger and Eliane Müller – biotechnet link
Regenerative medicine is one of the most dynamic areas of research in the biomedical research and is of central importance for the development of translational medicine. The aim of regenerative medicine is the restoration of dysfunctional cells, tissues or organs by stimulating the body’s own repair or regeneration processes or by biological replacement of tissue engineered living cells, tissues or biomaterials in the laboratory.
