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Dianna Bowles is Director of CNAP and Weston Chair of Biochemistry, University of York. She has over 30 years' experience in plant biochemistry and her current research is aimed at understanding the role of glycosylation in regulating the bio-activity of small molecules. She founded The Plant Journal and was the journal's Chief Editor for 11 years. She has worked extensively with the UK Research Councils and Government has extensive experience in non-food crop policy development both in the UK and internationally. Dianna is currently the Chair of the UK's Knowledge Transfer Network - Bioscience for Business.
As Project Director I am delighted to welcome you to the first EPOBIO newsletter. EPOBIO is a new project funded through the European Union’s 6th Framework Research Programme, bringing together world-class scientists and industrial expertise to realise the economic potential of plant-derived raw materials, to benefit society. Over the next two years our newsletters will provide information on the progress of EPOBIO.
This is the most exciting initiative on non-food crops in which I have been involved - and it is a privilege to direct this new Consortium. The EPOBIO project brings together the science, technologies and the supply chains for the new products to go successfully to market. Our approach is holistic. We will be working closely with environmental scientists, agronomists, experts in legislation and regulations, socio-economists, policy-makers and the public to ensure the products we develop are beneficial to our society and for our planet. This is putting science in its wider social context. Our aim is to underpin the significance of biorenewables in the emerging knowledge-based bio-economy of this new century.
EPOBIO will be working closely with a number of the European Technology Platforms including Plants for the Future, Sustainable Chemistry – Industrial Biotechnology, Biofuels and the Forestry-based Sector to ensure a focussed agenda and complementarity.
EPOBIO will be organising two international conferences to frame our work and review our conclusions - the first will be in May this year.
Our website www.epobio.net gives more detail about the EPOBIO project and its links to the continuing discussions of the US-EC Taskforce in Briotechnology Research. The website will also give you full details of our conference in Wageningen, taking place from 22-24 May 2006.
We are also pleased to announce that the EPOBIO project enables the continued dissemination of the results of EU research activities in the area of renewable bio-products, previously funded through BioMatNet.
The EPOBIO team and I look forward to working with you throughout the project.
With finite fossil reserves and costs of oil and petrochemicals increasing, bio-renewables offer society a sustainable means of providing energy and products. The EPOBIO objective is to design new generations of bio-based products derived from plant raw materials.
In this international initiative, academic and industrial scientists are working together to develop products within the wider framework of environmental impact and benefit, economics, regulations, attitudes and expectations of policy makers and the public. The aim is to ensure products of high utility that benefit society will reach the market place in 10-15 years.
EPOBIO builds on the foresight and the foundation established during 2004/2005 by the US/EC Taskforce in Biotechnology Research - ‘plant-based bioproducts: creating value from renewable resources’. Discussion were held at a workshop in Albany in April 2004 and the proceedings are recorded in the document “Applications of Molecular Biology for the Production of Plants for Biobased Products and Biofuels” which can be accessed on the EPOBIO website.
Discussions during 2004/2005 established criteria to define Flagship themes that represent important areas for new international R&D activities. Those criteria are:
User/consumer benefit: Demonstrable societal benefit across the entire supply chain.
Scientific challenge: Research requires large-scale, complementary multinational input to overcome current bottlenecks to the development of next generation bioproducts.
Economic benefits and risk analysis: Analysis of each project and product as a continuum – from research to proof-of-concept and eventual market.
Partners and colleagues met in December 2005 at York for the project Kick-off Meeting
The new Flagship themes are to be developed in field-based and fermenter applications, often involving multi-disciplinary teams and building on advances in plant and microbial sciences and their associated technologies. The first flagships address plant cell walls, plant oils and biopolymers, linking through the criteria for choice interacting with the support areas, as illustrated below:
| Flagship Themes: | ||||||||||||||||||
plant cell walls |
plant oils |
biopolymers |
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| Criteria for choice: | ||||||||||||||||||
 user / consumer benefit scientific challenge economic benefits and risk analysisprivate sector involvement |
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Markus Pauly has over 13 years research expertise in biochemistry, plant molecular biology and molecular physiology. He is an independent group leader at the Max-Plank Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany. His main scientific interest is in the relationship between the structure of plant cell wall polysaccharides and their function. He makes extensive use of enzymatic degradation of wall polymers as an analytical tool. 
Sarah Hake has over 25 years of research expertise in plant development biology and genetics. She is Center Director of the Plant Gene Expression Center and Adjunct Professor at University of California, Berkeley. A world-leading development biologist, she is starting to apply her expertise to increasing the utility of sustainable resources. All plants contain cell walls, where most of the assimilated atmospheric carbon dioxide is deposited. Thus, plant cell walls represent the most abundant renewable resource present on this planet. Many uses of this reserve are constrained by a major bottleneck: the ability to fractionate the raw materials into easily accessible industrial relevant components and precursors for e.g. biofuel production.
Cost-efficient biorefining materials and processes have to be developed to deliver environmental benefit through reduced dependence on the import of fossil fuels and consumer benefit. Other benefits include enhancing wall-based material properties, e.g. textile fibre yields, length, and strength.
 Schematic diagram of plant cell walls |
Plant cell walls have naturally evolved to resist breakdown from mechanical and microbial forces, precisely the processes needed for efficient, cost-effective biorefining. To unlock the components in these biomaterials therefore represents a massive scientific and technical challenge and will require a multidisciplinary approach and co-ordinated action by experts. Positive economic and environmental drivers are necessary to bring major directional change and further development by the industries concerned.
Sten Stymne has been one of the leading scientists in plant lipid biochemistry for over 20 years. He is establishing a Strategic Research Centre for the production and utilisation of vegetable oils by industry at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. His work on a pathway for triacylglycerol biosynthesis has been the working assumption for research in the area for 15 years. 
John Dyer is a Lead Scientist in the Commodity Utilization Research Unit (USDA-ARS) in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has over 17 years of experience in protein biochemistry and molecular/cellular biology. His work focuses on the production of industrial oils in plants, with an emphasis on understanding the molecular and cellular events involved in channelling of fatty acids into storage oils.Petroleum is a finite resource that provides essential fuels and raw materials for society and industry. Alternative sources of energy and industrial feedstocks are required to maintain and enhance the quality of life in both developed and developing countries. The seed oils of plants are structurally similar to long chain hydrocarbons derived from petroleum, and thus represent excellent renewable resources for oleochemical production. Some seed oils could replace petroleum in direct uses, such as lubricants and fuel. Moreover, specialized seed oils could provide novel bio-materials that would replace petroleum used in the production of paints, plastics and composite materials, for example. While many plant species are known to produce high amounts of industrially important fatty acids in their seeds, scientists have been unable to determine the number and type of genes that are required for the production of high amounts of the desired fatty acids in engineered crops. Therefore, a concerted, integrated research programme is required to establish the knowledge base and molecular tools required for optimizing the production of industrially important oils in high-yielding, agronomically important crops.
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Seeds of Crambe, a novel oil crop |
Production of industrial oils in crop plants would provide sustainable and renewable sources of raw materials for industry, increase the competitiveness and viability of the agricultural sector and reduce dependence on foreign oil imports.
Yves Poirier is Director of the Department of Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Lausanne. His work over the last 10 years has had two key themes - the metabolic engineering of plants for the synthesis of polyhydroxyalkanaotes (PHA) and phosphate uptake and distribution in plants, in particular the study of the gene family PHO1 which is involved in the export of inorganic phosphate to the vascular system. Until recently, humankind relied largely on renewable products, many of which are synthesized by plants, to produce a variety of useful materials, e.g. rubber and cellulosic fibres and films. It is only with the advent of petrochemistry that synthetic polymers, such as polypropylene and other plastics, have become predominant in our society. The realisation of the finite nature of our petroleum reserve, the increase in cost of this resource, and the environmental issues linked with plastics and petroleum has brought a new impetus to the use of renewable resources for the production of materials. This Flagship will look at challenges to the use of agricultural plants for the production of a range of biopolymers with useful material properties. These include, but are not limited to, the synthesis of polymers with plastics and elastomeric properties such as polyhydroxyalkanoates and rubbers, starch-based plastics, as well as fibres and adhesives based on proteins or poly-amino acids. In particular, the flagship will be addressing the question: how can plant biology/biotechnology contribute to the development of the use of agricultural plants for the production of biopolymers? We shall also consider potential benefits to the producers and users of biopolymers based on agricultural plants, including benefits to the agricultural sector, the manufacturing industries and the consumers. |
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The first of two EPOBIO workshops is being held at Wageningen in the Netherlands from 22-24 May. The workshop is entitled Products from Plants – the Biorefinery Future.
The first morning of the workshop will be made up of a series of keynote presentations with a strong industry focus from a global perspective. We shall examine agricultural impacts and opportunities for the developing world. Alongside the EPOBIO vision we shall look at links to relevant European Technology Platforms.
An introduction to the Flagship themes will set the scene for detailed examination of those themes in breakout sessions. The sessions will be led by Flagship leaders and invited experts and will address a set of common questions designed to identify R&D needs, actions required and deliverables and products set against realistic timescales.
The final day of the workshop will hear reports back from the Flagships. A final plenary discussion will consider the way forward and identify possible future Flagship themes for future development.
Full information about the workshop and booking details can be found at: www.epobioworkshop2006.net
For full details see www.epobio.org/partners.htm
CNAP University of York, United Kingdom
In future editions of the newsletter we will look in more detail at the work of the Flagship Themes and of the supporting work dealing with economics, environmental impact and benefits, regulations, attitudes and the expectation of policy makers and the public.
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David Clayton is the EPOBIO Project Officer. He has over 30 years experience in policy development in the UK in a number of sectors of agriculture. For the last 8 years he has worked on non-food crops including preparation of the UK strategy for the sector. He has been responsible for EU regimes for non-food crops and UK legislation. |
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Elaine Hughson provides administrative support for EPOBIO. |
© Copyright 2006, CNAP Policy Statements
Updated
26 March, 2007
by CPL Press - web@epobio.net
