German industry collaborates closely on microbial genome research

Prominent companies in Germany in the chemicals, pharmaceuticals and nutrition industries have come together for the first time under the umbrella of the Industrieverbund Mikrobielle Genomforschung (industry/science association to promote microbial genome research), Dusseldorf, with the aim of advancing microbial genome research as a technology with broad industrial application.

The work is being carried out in close co-operation with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and academic research groups. The first projects are each financed equally by the BMBF and industry to a total value of Euro 42m over five years. Over the next few years the projects will seek to improve how efficiently micro-organisms are used in technical processes and to develop new products from micro-organisms with new properties. Industry and the BMBF will provide around €600m for white biotechnology projects over the next 10 years.

The Industrieverbund Mikrobielle Genomforschung is supported by BASF, Bayer Crop Science, BRAIN, Degussa, Henkel, Milupa, Schering, Suedzucker and Wacker, as well as other small and medium-sized companies. Its chairman, Dr Karl-Heinz Maurer, said: 'The use of genome information to optimise micro-organisms and their products is becoming a key factor in the global race to be first with the best products and processes in white biotechnology.'

'Genome-based analysis and optimisation of organisms, production processes and applications is set to become one of the prerequisites for innovative and competitive products and processes in the field of chemistry, pharmaceuticals, medicine and nutrition. The GenoMik-Plus networks have advanced the development of the technology and methods required to the extent that industry can now put them into practical application,' added Professor Dr Alfred Puehler, holder of the chair of genetics at Bielefeld University and co-ordinator of the Bielefeld GenoMik-Plus network.

'The use of micro-organisms in industrial biotechnology is regarded as a key technology of the 21st century. What is increasingly becoming the "glass cell" is making it possible to quantify and use the natural metabolic activity of micro-organisms more efficiently than ever before. As a result, advances in sequencing methods and functional genome analysis can enable the genetic configuration of organisms to be revealed and compared within a very short time. This will enable the very complex ways in which micro-organisms interact with their environment to become increasingly predictable.

As a result it will be possible to develop products and intermediates based on renewable materials as well as, for example, new substances that have an antibiotic effect or that can be proven to have a positive effect on intestinal flora.