More about the programme
The impact of biotechnology for the production of pharmaceuticals, food and feed and the production of fine and base chemicals is steadily growing. The complexity and scale of some of the conventional processes and the selling price of the bio-products may have justified a largely empirical design. However, modern technology faces the challenge of designing environmentally friendly, economically feasible and technologically optimal processes. Such an Integrated Process Design requires an interdisciplinary approach, including protein-, genetic-, metabolic- and process engineering. The importance of linking the fundamental biosciences to the engineering disciplines for process development was recognised by the ESRC's working group for Technical Science and the ESF Executive Council. This resulted in the launching of the ESF Programme on Process Integration in Biochemical Engineering for the years 1992-1994.
The aims of establishing a platform for strong European Biochemical Engineering Groups, and enlarging the input of Bioprocess Technology (Biochemical Engineering), have so far been given shape in a series of well-attended workshops, a fellowship exchange programme and the development of an intensive graduate course dedicated to the thermodynamic fundamentals of biochemical engineering. Furthermore, the PIBE programme of the European Science Foundation participated with the (US) Engineering Foundation in the organization of the Conference on Recombinant DNA Technology III: The Integration of Biological and Engineering Sciences in Deauville, France, in October 1994.
Prolongation
The contacts established so far within the PIBE Programme have resulted in quite a number of collaborations, some of which may lead to joint international research programmes. These contacts have the function of a platform for Process Integration, which has shown some preliminary influence in the Biotechnology part of the IVth Framework Programme of the EC and its "Cell Factory Area" in particular. Since Framework IV is expected to have openings in the coming two years, the two-year prolongation of the PIBE Programme for the period 1996-1997 will assist the coherence of the Biochemical Engineering activities at the European level and catalyse the establishment of long-term research projects in the field of Biochemical Engineering. The research projects in the Cell Factory Area of the IVth Framework Programme of the EC are expected to be effective from 1997 and hence a prolongation will be essential for bridging this intermediate period. The objectives for the prolongat
- to improve the extent of integration of biological and technological sciences at the European level, preferably leading to more long-term research collaborations in the field of Integrated Bioprocesses;
- to further combine the results obtained by the workshops so far and the Intensive Course; and
- to integrate this knowledge to establish generic Process Design concepts for more efficient and cleaner biotechnological production methods, to be elaborated in long-term research collaborations
