German-Norwegian project started: “LignoLIPP: From LIGNOcellulose sugars to high-value LIPids and bioPolymers in a single fermentation process”

Today, we should have been in Norway, but the Corona virus has not allowed this. Instead, Dr. Jasper Wattjes and Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher from our group and our alumna Dr. Rebecca Melcher, founder of Bex-Biotec, met in our new “video conference” room the whole day and discussed online with our Norwegian partners: Olga Shapaval, Achim Kohler, Boris Zimmermann, Valeria Tafintseva, and Simona Dzurendova from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Patil Vishwanath from the company Borregaard ASA, and Sushil Gaykawad from the research centre NORCE. All partners introduced themselves and presented their scientific background, their expertise and infrastructure that will be available for the LignoLIPP project. We learned about the extensive work of the Norwegians on oleagineous Zygomycetes fungi, i.e. fungi that produce large amounts of precious lipids. And we explained to them our work on structure-function relationships of chitosans. Given that Zygomycetes fungi are known producers of natural chitosans in their cell walls, this is a clear win-win situation. Of course, we already knew that we have a good project. But only now, we also know that we have a good consortium: dedicated partners who are strong in their respective fields and who are devoted to combine excellent fundamental research with the development of processes and products for a sustainable bioeconomy. We are very much looking forward to a promising project.