José M. Bruno-Bárcena

Civilisation is defined by our tools ??????????????????Stone Age, Bronze Age, and today, the Plastic Age. Although humanity benefits greatly from plastic, degradation in landfills can take up to 1,000 years, and in oceans plastics pose a threat to all life. Biodegradable alternatives are too expensive and without any additional benefits compared to petroleum-based plastics, preventing their widespread commercial use. A commercially viable, compostable food-packaging alternative must provide additional properties that justify a higher initial cost to the food processors. The SmartBioplastic program will deliver such a ground-breaking new food-packaging material in a first application study. At the end of the program, we will understand the fundamental processes of biology and material science to create and commercialise a novel SmartBioplastic prototype food-packing film that has been validated to compost naturally, and provide protection against infection with Campylobacter and Clostridium for a range of meat products, thereby extending product shelf-life and reducing a significant threat to our meat export markets. SmartBioplastics will create new market opportunities, revenue and international licensing streams estimated NZD $209M/p.a. for meat and seafood products alone and an environmental impact of NZD $480M/p.a. The research outcomes and technology developed will enable new spin-offs for SmartBioplastics into many new markets, such as agriculture and medical consumables and devices. Our multidisciplinary team unites eminent scientists in microbiology, bacterial fermentation, and polymer- and material sciences to leverage one of NZ??????????????????s key strengths, the primary sector, and uses innovation and challenging scientific hypotheses to bring NZ to the forefront of a green plastic revolution which will lead to an increase in export revenues and global leadership.

To advance the study of the nutrients limiting Agrobacterium tumefaciens growth and consistent biomass yields. The population will be initially culture using a medium formulation previously tested containing optimal complex nitrogen source. The goal of this proposed research is to enable the validation of the upstream high cell density process performance. The new environmental conditions will simulate Medicago process operations and the controlled microbial growth conditions will be performed in a 20 Liter reactor Biostat C equipped with sterilization in place (SIP).

The study of the interactions between the microorganism and its environment is usually recognized as microbial physiology. The surrounding environment and the behavior of microorganisms is dictated either by its ecological niche in nature or the conditions under which it is cultivated in the laboratory or in an industrial installation. As the occurrence of microbiological products are also the resultants of the interaction between the microorganisms and its environment, production and microbial physiology are closely related areas of study. Agrobacterium species are quite exigent regarding environmental and growth requirements. Therefore, media of increasing complexity will cause headaches during product separation and product recovery. Conversely the use of simpler formulations creates problems with biomass productivity, and hence cells stability. Therefore, for the control of growth compromises should be made during medium formulations leaving a small role to unknown growth factors present on limiting concentrations on the complex nitrogen sources.

North Carolina State University's Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC) in Raleigh, NC proposes to provide a comprehensive biomanufacturing training program to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigators under the auspices of the FDA Office of Regulatory Affairs. The goal of the program is to enable investigators to expand the scope of their biopharmaceutical inspections. To accomplish this goal, industry-experienced BTEC staff will design, develop, and deliver a 4-course program covering a range of biopharmaceutical topics. This program will be offered every year for five years. These courses will include Web-based training, classroom instruction and hands-on laboratory experiences at BTEC.

Integration of biomass feedstock production, storage and conversion of on-farm has potential to minimize costs associated with the generation of biofuels. Crop cultivation, harvest, transporation and storage practices will be investigated for several grass species for suitablity of use in on-farm microbial conversion systems. Use of biomass residues from anaerobic solid state fermentation processing in gasification will be examined and functional use of produced syngas in the microbial conversion process will be determined.