On 18th October The Science in three minutes competition found it´s end during an official gala. The competition initiated by Estonian Academy of Sciences was held in English for the first time. Bioengineering doctoral student Inna Lipova was one among the nominees and gave a powerful presentation about how food waste is being valorized into high value-added carotenoid astaxanthin through bioprocess.
Bioengineering opened its laboratory for visitors for Scientists´ Night organized by TalTech. For one night, students, adults as well as children had the chance to explore fluoroscent bacteria, see 3D printing of hydrogels and engage in conversations with our doctoral students. The children had an opportunity to learn about nucleotides and build a sweet model of DNA helix. Moreover, they could have hands-on learning experience in the difference of plant and animal cells.
Our doctoral student Henrique and visiting Master´s student Katharina participated in the 4th Engineered Living Materials conference in Saarbrücken, Germany. They presented current work done in the Bioengineering Group on biocontainment and novel matrix formation in hydrogels, respectively. The conference not only dealt with the technical aspects of the discipline, but also had a discussion on public outreach and regulatory hurdles to overcome for further development within the field. Participants got a better understanding of the ongoing research and the bottlenecks we all need to excel to grow our ideas further. In several interesting talks, new advances and inspiring ideas in the highly interdisciplinary field were shared. Some of Katharina´s highlights included alternative textiles from bacterial cellulose, fungi-based and biomineralized building materials and toxin-sensing materials.
The Bioengineering team took the most out of a brief Estonian summer and had a day bonding over open air activities. We had a day for sailing, hiking in Naissaare island and enjoying meals together. The time spent together sparked new conversations and created bonds between team members who may not communicate a lot during regular working hours. One of the interns commented: “I had so many conversations with people that I don´t normally talk to, it is worth a couple of months´ conversations within one day!”. Relaxed environment is a good opportunity to learn about the team members and everyone agreed that we had a lot of fun.
As an international team the learning moment of the day was intercultural communication. The participants were invited to step out of their comfort zones and participate in games which required performing tasks out of the box.
The Science Day event at the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology took place on April 28, and our research group organised a workshop Future Food From Microbes for the 2nd consecutive time. This year, participants had an opportunity to take part in guided experiments in our laboratories on fermentation technologies and metabolic engineering, and engage in stimulating discussions with our team members. Anyone interested in molecular biology, bioreactors, or other biotechnology disciplines was offered something interesting.
For the participants, it was a perfect chance to learn, explore, and interact with scientists who share enthusiasm for science. For us, the Thanksgiving celebration served as a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the achievements and milestones we reached during the Science Day. We are truly grateful for the organisation by the department, which enabled us to create an engaging and enriching experience for the high school students. We look forward to future events that will continue to inspire and ignite the curiosity of young minds!
On April 29, TalTech Science Day 2022 event took place at the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology. Food Tech and Bioengineering group organised a workshop “Future food from microbes”. The workshop was devoted to the production of bread and introducing yeast-based cell factories. Participants were introduced to bread baking technologies and experiments improving nutritional value of bread and beyond. The general feedback of the workshops was very positive, 86 % of participants graded it with 9 or 10 in a 10-point scale. More about the workshop, in pictures.
Altogether, Science Day 2022 at Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology offered 19 different workshops that were attended by 89 participants. Majority of workshop participants were high school students, but almost every 4th participant was from outside educational system. Next time it is going to be more focused on high school students and is planned for the next year 2023.
In this seminar, Dr. Francesco Gatto illustrates how his group investigated regulation of cancer metabolism using systems biology approaches leading to the discovery of potential cancer biomarkers for early detection. The talk further focuses on the challenge to translate fundamental discoveries in clinical practice and the foundation of Elypta – a start-up university spin-off that is executing this transition.
Collaboration project between TalTech, University of Tartu and Life-science University together with three Estonian ministries – ADDVAL-BIOEC – Added value in Estonian bioeconomy – with a strong contribution also from our Bioengineering group is finishing. The collected research will be presented at the conference on October 26th, 2021, at Erinevate Tubade Klubi, Telliskivi 60-A1, Tallinn (event language is Estonian).
More information: www.taltech.ee/biomajandus
Register to the event: https://forms.gle/hiUc9MCBefLsPePi8
You are welcome to participate in the following guest seminar.
Prof. Sergio Bordel Velasco
Department of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology, University of Valladolid, Spain
Title: Metabolism of methanotrophic bacteria. A Genome-Scale modeling perspective.
When: Thursday, October 14th at 4 PM
Where: SCI-028 (on-line link will follow)
Link to publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=I2K5LLUAAAAJ
Host: Assoc. Prof. Petri-Jaan Lahtvee
TalTech and Food Tech and Bioengineering lab will be present at the Garage48 event Food 2021, organized in Tartu, Estonia.
Garage48 Food – greener food for a greener planet will take place from October 24-26, 2021 online and offline.
More info and registration: https://garage48.org/events/garage48-food
Prof. Petri Lahtvee was introducing the Sustainable Food Production and Food Economy 4.0 at the Estonian Society of Human Genetics conference, organized from September 30 to October 1st in Haapsalu, Estonia.
Full program: here
It was a great pleasure to visit the COST Action Yeast4Bio bi-annual conference in A Coruna, Spain and chair a session on non-conventional yeast Systems and Synthetic Biology together with Prof. Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro.
Two days full of exciting scientific discussions!!! Thank you to all the speakers and participants for creating such a nice environment and Prof. Christian Kennes @UDC_gal for organising it. #bioeconomy #nonconventionalyeast #bioproducts
On the 28th of October 2021 (14h- 16h) a seminar will be given by Petri-Jaan Lahtvee (Assoc. Professor) on Circular Economy at ALU Freiburg (Germany), one of the partner in the Local Electron Delivery in Bioinks for Efficient Yeast Cell Factories project.
This project of the Baltic-German University Liaison Office is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic Germany.
Here the link to access the conference
https://uni-freiburg.zoom.us/j/66501878693?pwd=Sk1WQk1HNXpIdlBIRjhJWGlSYVB0QT09
We had fun at the group outing at Nõmme Adventure park, climbing trees, ropes and free-falling from the trees:)
Thanks, Andreia, for organising it!
Prof. Petri Lahtvee and senior scientist Dr. Nemailla Bonturi were presenting at this year’s largest yeast conference ICY15 meets ICYGMB 30 (International Conference of Yeast meets International Conference on Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology), taking place on August 23-27, 2021 and hosted by BOKU, Austria.
Petri gave a talk and chaired the Systems Biology session, while Nemailla gave a talk at the Synthetic Biology session.
More info: https://icy15.boku.ac.at/
During his research visit at TalTech, our partner from ALU Freiburg, Tobias Butelmann, will give a seminar (seminar room SCI-109 or online here) about living materials and the current project about Local Electron Delivery in Bioinks for Efficient Yeast Cell Factories. The seminar will be publicly available. Since this project is highly interdisciplinary, we invite all interested people to join this seminar!
Date: 06 August 2021, 11:00 – 12:00.
Abstract: The need for sustainable processes to produce value-added chemicals and materials displays a major challenge of our time. Engineered microbes have the proven power to solve these challenges, as more efficient processes are required in terms of the cell factory as well as the cultivation performance. Bioprocesses currently used in industry are primarily based on batch and fed-batch mode, where yields and productivities have peaked and require technological innovations to uplift this cap on productivities. Additive manufacturing technologies can provide opportunities to move beyond traditional processes and empower a new industrial revolution. 3D printing can be applied together with engineered microbes to print living materials with superior properties to common suspension cultures used in biorefineries. Those living materials consist of a bioink that encapsulates the host organism – a cell factory for the desired product.
One bottleneck in engineered microbes is the regeneration of co-factors, which are critical for their efficiency. To overcome this, special conductible bioinks for living materials can be designed that help embedded microbes by the delivery of electrons for co-factor regeneration. The successful implementation of such a platform has the potential to increase the efficiency of engineered microbes by multiples and, hence, create sustainable biorefinery processes.
This project of the Baltic-German University Liaison Office is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic Germany.
