Third annual meeting science meeting
Our 3rd annual science meeting, held at the East Midlands Conference Centre, was attended by over 160 BioProNET members. As well as speakers from the UK, there was a strong international theme to the event; over half the speakers were international, and our two keynote speakers — Bill Barton and Pete Tessier— were from the USA. More details here.
Outreach events
BioProNET, together with the University of Kent, took part in the Big Bang Near Me and Chemistry at Work events, both of which aimed to inspire students to study STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). At the events, students learned the difficulties in making antibody-based medicines by trying to make replica biologics out of modelling balloons. More details here.
Internationalisation meeting
The BioProNET internationalisation meeting had around 30 invited attendees from across Europe, and aimed to strengthen links within the international bioprocessing community.
CHO cell platforms: chassis for engineering improved bioprocessing
This workshop, held at the University of Manchester on December 8th, aimed to provide a snapshot vision for the current understanding of the CHO cell platforms as applied to production of recombinant therapeutics.
Early careers event
The 2016 early careers event was held in Brighton, overlooking the seafront. BioProNET early career researchers took part in media training, which was run by Coconut Communications, whose trainers all had extensive experience of working in the national media. The second day of the event featured CV clinics and mock interviews. More details here.
Overcoming cellular barriers – implications for industrial biotechnology
Over 75 BioProNET, BioCatNet and CBMNet members attended this joint network event, which featured talks from academic and industrial scientists, followed by project- and collaboration-building sessions. Nine project ideas were generated and champions assigned to take these projects forward; indeed several of the projects subsequently received NIBB funding. More details here.
Outreach – a perspective of bioprocessing
As part of our outreach activities, we commissioned artist Keith Robinson to produce four paintings that explore networks, collaborations and bioprocessing from an artistic perspective.
Funding
Business interaction vouchers in 2016, BioProNET awarded 8 business interaction vouchers to kick-start academia–industry collaboration. Details here and here.
Funding support
BioProNET supported the successful application by the Universities of Manchester and Kent for BBSRC STARS funding. In addition BioProNet supported Natalio Krasnogor from the University of Newcastle in his successful grant application entitled ‘Synthetic Portabolomics: Leading the Way at the Crossroads of the Digital and the Bio Economies’. And Professor Ian Stansfield from the University of Aberdeen has recently been awarded funding for a collaborative project investigating how to optimize the production of biologics, which was catalyzed by his participation at BioProNET events
Case studies of completed BioProNET funded projects can be found on our website.
