ESAB webinar: Bruno Moerschbacher talked about “Enzymes for Converting Chitin/Chitosans into Highly Valuable Products.”

Today, the European Society of Applied Biocatalysis ESAB together with the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry SusChem organised by DECHEMA (Gesellschaft für Chemische Technik und Biotechnologie e.V.) held its joint webinar, which typically airs each last Friday of the month, with four half-hour presentations. Today, the topic was Biocatalysis and Renewables. Prof. Dr. Stefan Buchholz, Head of R&D for the Division Nutrition & Care at Evonik Operations GmbH in Hamburg, and Prof. Dr. Harald Gröger, Chair of Organic Chemistry and Biotechnology of Bielefeld University, formerly a colleague of Prof. Buchholz in Industry before re-joining Academia, gave excellent overviews of the developments over the past 20 years in designing bioprocesses and biomaterials for a sustainable, circular bioeconomy. Prof. Dr. Ning Li, from the School of Food Science and Engineering at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, then more specifically reported on his recent chemobiocatalytic work on upgrading furfurals gained from plant cell wall hemicelluloses into different fine chemicals such as maleic or fumaric acid, important raw materials for different purposes. Finally, Prof. Moerschbacher presented our work on using chitin and chitosan modifying enzymes to control the pattern of acetylation of bioactive chitosans, as a first step towards third generation chitosans with improved biofunctionalities and biodegradability. Together, these talks gave a broad introduction and overview of current developments in biotechnology for the bioeconomy, and we are looking forward to the next event, July 29, on Biocatalysis and Molecular Medicine.