Greenchem NoticeNewsletter from Greenchem

No. 1 2009

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Staff information 2 New co-workers 2

Stefan Karlsson new contact 3

Update on parental leaves 3

Anna replaces Josefin 3

Devenz news 4An interchange with DUT in South Africa 4The 8th carbohydrate Bio- engineering meeting 5Visit to UPM and UTM in Malaysia 5Greenchem Spring Meeting 6Greenchem in Media 7Forthcoming activities 7

Editor: Anna Rosenquist, anna.rosenquist@biotek.lu.se, www.greenchem.lu.se

Contents

Anna Rosenquist, Programme secretary

As summer is here it is time to summarize the spring 2009. Since the last Greenchem notice Josefin returned from her maternity

leave for three months. She is now back home on a second period of maternity leave and I am hence working as the secretary until the New Year.

In this issue of the Greenchem notice you will find some words about our newest co-work-ers that have joined Greenchem at LU since New Year. We would also like to welcome Ste-fan Karlsson who is a new industry representa-tive from AAK. You can read about Greenchem colleagues who have attended The 8th carbo-hydrate Bioengineering meeting in Italy, given lectures on green chemistry in Malaysia and worked on collaboration projects in South Africa.

We hope that you all did enjoy the spring meet-ing that was held in April at The Old Bishop´s House in Lund. You will find a summary of those days in the newsletter. As we could hear during the spring meeting and also as reported in the Greenchem annual report 2008 that was finalised and distributed, the Greenchem research contin-ues very well and new interesting results are con-tinuously reported and even new lines of product development are being reported. Also, a patent application has been filed. This coming autumn David Svensson and Ulrika Törnvall will defend their thesis as planned on the 24th of September and 29th of October respectively. I would also like you all to note that the Greenchem autumn meet-ing 2009 will be held 6-7 October. I hope you all will have the possibility to attend these activities.

Finally I and Rajni would like to take the opportunity to wish you

a very pleasant summer!

New co-workers

Post doc Konstanze Stiba

Since January 2009 Konstanze Stiba from Germany is working in Green-chem. Konstanze did her Ph D at University of Greifswald in the field of Molecular biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology, finishing in December 2008. In the current project that will continue during 2009 Konstanze is working on improved perhydrolytic activity of lipase and synthesis of cyclic carbonates for coatings.

Ph D Student Deepti Sahoo

Deepti Sahoo got her master´s degree in Biotechnology from Bangalore University, India, in 2004. She started working in the Department of Bio-technology, Lund, as a guest researcher on purification of biomolecules us-ing simulated moving bed technology. At the moment she is associated to Greenchem working on purification of biosurfactants using SMB technology under the supervision of Gashaw Mamo and Rajni Hatti Kaul.

Ph D Student Rawana Al-Khalili

Rawana Al-Khalili from Jordan got a master´s degree in Biotechnology from Lund University in 2007. Since spring 2009 Rawana is a Ph D student working in Greenchem on carrying out site-directed mutagenesis on differ-ent amino acids residues of cyclodextrin glucanotransferase (CGTase) from Archaeoglobus fulgidus in order to study the effects of those mutants on the catalytic activity and thermostability of the enzyme, supervised by Olle Holst and Eva Nordberg Karlsson.

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Staff Information

Text: Anna Rosenquist

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Master Student Edvard Rask

Edvard Rask has been working in Greenchem with his Master thesis since January, 2009. Supervised by Eva Nordberg Karlsson and Catherine Paul he is improving the expression of the CGTase gene by making silent mutations. Edvard will finish his work in August 2009 after which he is about to gradu-ate from the programme of Natural Sciences at Lund University.

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Update on parental leaves

Linda Tufvesson returned from her maternity leave in January 2009 and is now back on a second period of ma-ternity leave. Anna Hagström has returned from her maternity leave and is working part time since March 2009. Josefin Ahlqvist returned from maternity leave during March-May 2009 and is now back on parental leave until the new year.

Anna replaces Josefin

From the 1st of June until the 31st of December 2009 Anna Rosenquist is replacing Josefin Ahlqvist as programme secretary during the latter´s maternity leave.

Stefan Karlsson new contact person at AAK

AAK has undergone re-organisation and Stefan Karlsson is now con-tact person at AAK in Karlshamn together with Magnus Jörsmo. We welcome Stefan to Greenchem!

Project employee Pontus Lundemo

Project employee Pontus Lundemo got a civil engineering degree in Chemi-cal Biology from Linköping University early spring 2009. Since 1st of May Pontus is a project employee in Greenchem. During the coming months he will be working in the field of enzymatic synthesis of surfactants, supervised by Patrick Adlercreutz and David Svensson.

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Stefan Karlsson

Anna Rosenquist and Josefin Ahlqvist

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An interchange with DUT in South Africa

In the middle of March Tania Pozzo went to Durban in South Africa as a part of a collaboration project with DUT (Durban University of Technology). During three months at the Department of Biotech-nology and Food Technology at DUT Tania worked with three xylanases classified in different families. In collaboration with MONDI Laboratories, a com-pany famous within the pulp industry, Tania was working in the field of enzymatic modifications on kraft pulp. The studies focused on bleaching pro-cedures by using xylanases and glycosyl hydrolases. Back in Sweden Tania says that the collaboration with DUT has given her the opportunity to meet many friendly and helping people and she found the interchange to be a really good experience.

Text: Anna Rosenquist

Teamforskning Syd AB has now been sold to LUAB. There has been a great interest among Greenchem re-searchers to buy shares in Devenz and almost all shares are now sold.

Devenz has also filed a preliminary patent on alkyl glycosides to the US patent office.

The Devenz home page has been updated and you are most welcome to make a visit on www.devenz.com.

Devenz News

Text: Anna RosenquistPhotos: Sohana Ranglal

Durban University of Technology

Durban University of Technology Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology at Durban University of Technology

5Text: Anna Rosenquist

Visit to UPM and UTM in Malaysia

This spring Rajni Hatti-Kaul went to Malaysia to visit Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Selangor och Uni-versiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in Johor Bahru. Raj-ni was invited to both UPM and UTM to hold lectures on Green chemistry, Industrial Biotechnology and Greenchem research. UPM is very active in research in green chemistry and biocatalyst design. UTM has a well established pilot plant for microbial fermentations and natural product isolation. In Malaysia Rajni also met Nora Abd Ghani who was previously associated to the Greenchem research at the department of Biotechnology.

Professor Hesham in UTMs pilot hall

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Visiting lab at UPM. Professor Basya´s seen in the picture.

Text: Eva Nordberg KarlssonPhoto: Samiullah Khan

The 8th carbohydrate Bioengineering meeting

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Three researchers from the Greenchem program (Patrick Adlercreutz, Eva Nordberg Karlsson and Cath-erine Paul) visited the 8th carbohydrate Bioengineering meeting (CBM8) held at Ischia outside Naples in Italy. Contributions on enzyme characteristics, enzyme de-velopment and enzymatic synthesis of alkylglycosides were presented. The Conference included sessions on screening and protein engineering of carbohydrate ac-tive enzymes (CAZymes), chemical and enzymatic syn-thesis of carbohydrates, glycogenomic and glycomic, structural and functional analysis of sugars, glycocon-jugates and CAZymes, applications of carbohydrates, glycoconjugates and carbohydrate active enzymes in health, nutrition, and biocatalysis.

Catherine Paul, discussing results on Archaeoglobus fulgidis

Attending student seminars at UPM

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The Greenchem spring meeting 2009 was held at the beautiful Old bishop´s house in Lund. The first day we had the opportunity to listen to the Greenchem researchers presenting their latest results. In the af-ternoon we also listened to our invited guests, Per Si-monsson (Deputy CEO at Sustainable Business Hub), Shukun Yu (Senior Scientist at Danisco and also Ad-junct Professor at Department of Biotechnology, Lund University) and Per Eriksson (Vice-Chancellor of Lund University). In the evening we had a nice dinner at the restaurant Stäket. This day ended with music by Anna Mia Barwe and Sven Bjerstedt, which was very much appreciated. On the second day we had parallel AMG-meetings and the Greenchem Board meeting followed by the Industrial Group Meeting. After lunch Jerker Moodysson and Gunnar Modig held their project pres-entation regarding innovation system studies. Rajni Hatti-Kaul and Patrick Adlercreutz then presented two new VINNOVA projects that are granted with totally 33 million SEK.

The memoranda, presentations and protocols from the spring meeting are available on Greenchem internal homepage.

Text: Anna Rosenquist Photos: Josefin Ahlqvist

Greenchem Spring Meeting

Greenchem participants at Greenchem spring meeting, Old bishop´s house, Lund, 20-21 April, 2009

From top: Per Simonsson, Shukun Yu and Per Eriksson

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LUM, Nr. 2, 2009:”Grön bioteknik lockar finansiärer”, an interview with Rajni Hatti-Kaul

Universitas 21 Newsletter, Issue 14, March 2009“Biotechnology for a better environment”

Kemivärlden Biotech med Kemisk Tidskrift, Nr. 5, May 2009”Äntligen börjar det hända någonting”, a chronical by Harald Skogman

Mistra Newsletter, Nr. 5, 2009”Almedalen ny arena för Mistra”

Almedalen Greenchem will be represented in the panel of the Mistra seminar on how investors can contribute to a sustainable development. 1 July 2009, Visby

Board meeting 20 August 2009, AAK, Karlshamn

AMG-CCC meeting26 August 2009, AstraZeneca, Lund

AMG-CL meeting15 September 2009, Dep. of Biotechnology, Lund

Ph D defenceDavid Svensson, 24 September 2009

Ulrika Törnvall, 29 October 2009

Greenchem Autumn Meeting 6-7 October 2009

Programme report to Mistra1 December 2009

Have a good summer!

STIFTELSEN FÖR MILJÖSTRATEGISK FORSKNING

mistra nyhetsbrev nr 5 | 5

tre mistraprogram kommer att vararepresenterade på Sveriges, och kanskevärldens, mest unika happening inompolitik, media och lobbying. Här mötsmänniskor från organisationer, företag,politiska partier, tidningar, tv och radio.Allvar blandas med mingel, seminariumblandas med underhållning.

Den 1 juli håller Mistra en paneldis-kussion med rubriken: Klimatet ochkapitalet – hur investerare bidrar tillen hållbar utveckling. Bland annatkommer Mistras forskningsprogramSustainable Investments, Greenchemoch Marine Paint att delta.

– Pengar ska arbeta och den ekono-miska kris världen nu genomgår geross öppningar att diskutera hur vi till-sammans på bästa sätt kan investerakapital för en hållbar utveckling, sägerOla Engelmark, vd för Mistra somkommer att hälsa alla välkomna.

Moderator är Johan Trouvé som ärvd för Västsvenska Industri- ochHandelskammaren, och som också sit-ter i Mistras styrelse. I panelen deltarHenrik Malmsten, vd på GustaviaFonder, statssekreterare Jöran Hägglundoch Anders Brännström, vd på VolvoTechnology Transfer som har många

cleantechbolag i portföljen. Forsk-nings- och utvecklingschef LenaMårtensson från I-Tech bidrar ocksåtill debatten. I-Tech har köpt rättighe-terna till medetomidin som är denaktiva substansen i morgondagen mil-jövänliga båtbottenfärg, framforskadav Mistraprogrammet Marine Paint.Josefin Ahlqvist är vd för Devenz AB,ett företag som är ett direkt resultat avforskningprogrammet Greenchem, ochhon ger sin syn på klimatet och kapi-talet. Även Lars Hassel, programchefpå forskningsprogrammet SustainableInvestments deltar.

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Almedalen ny arena för MistraFör första gången deltar Mistra i Politikerveckani Almedalen med tre av sina forskningsprogram.

Media Coverage Forthcoming activities