Thank you for participating in the 35th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuel and Chemicals last week in Portland. Our attendance remained strong at over 700 attendees from 29 countries.

EXHIBITORS: Many thanks to our exhibitors for their participation. Our available tables sold out and traffic increased greatly with our new, dedicated, exhibit hours prior to the poster session.

PRESENTERS: Presenters have been invited to upload their presentations. Access will be limited to attendees of the 35th Symposium only.

ATTENDEES: As an attendee you have received several email messages with information on how to access uploaded presentations. Check back frequently as presentations will continue to be added.

MANUSCRIPTS: Presenters are invited to submit manuscripts to the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (JIMB).

Plan to join SIMB for the 36th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals April 28-May 1 as we return to the Hilton Clearwater Beach Hotel, Clearwater Beach, FL.

More information coming soon.

SIMB would like to congratulate the winners of the 2013 SIMB Election who will begin their terms of office at the Annual Business Meeting, August 14. Read more about the newly-elected officers here on the 2013 Candidates Bios (PDF).

President-elect
Tim Davies, Ph.D., Green Biologics, Abdington, UK

Directors
Ramon Gonzalez, Ph.D., Rice University, Houston, TX
Debbie Yaver, Novozymes, Davis, CA

Thanks to everyone who participate in this year’s election.

Don’t forget to cast your vote for the 2013 Board of Directors election. The election will close at 3pm EST on March 29, 2013. See what each candidate has to say about their SIMB experience and their outlook for the future. Full bios for each candidate are published in November/December SIMB News as well as on the voting site, and in the linked PDF below. To access the voting site please login to the SIMB members area. If you have not renewed your membership for 2013, renew now to remain eligible to vote.
Reminder: Student members are not eligible to vote.

Download the Election Bios (PDF) to read up on the candidates running this year.

RAFT X (Marco Island, FL; November 3-6, 2013) will be an opportunity to look back at 20 years of fermentation and bioprocess development, while looking forward to how our industry and research focus needs to change. More information on the meeting coming soon.

RAFT I was held in 1995, a decade after the first recombinant products from a nascent biotechnology industry entered the market. Large traditional pharmaceutical companies still had thriving natural products groups and were producing secondary metabolites in large bioreactors. Oil was again cheap after the oil embargo of the 70s and the idea of global warming had yet to take hold. The enthusiasm for ethanol and other renewable biochemical industries were still a future dream.

The 60s and 70s had seen an explosion in fermentation and biochemical engineering research and there were hopes that new reactor and process designs would revolutionise the way that we make biological products, leading to more economic production processes and allowing biotechnology products to compete with those produced through chemical or petrochemical routes.

Looking back from the vantage of 2013, not all of the promise of fermentation and chemical engineering has been realised. There has been an enormous growth in the biologics industry with the number of new biologically derived drugs exceeding new small molecule therapeutics. However, despite advances through improved cell culture and molecular biology techniques, the constraints of cGMP manufacture has reduced the uptake of technological breakthroughs. In industrial microbiology the ethanol industry has matured and green chemical manufacturing is growing, but this commodity sector is still not competing with the petrochemical industry on price. The fermentation processes and equipment used are not so different from those used 80 years ago.

The industry is now starting to see changes however. On the high value pharmaceutical end of the scale the advent of disposables in manufacturing is having a profound influence on reactor and process design. In industrial and biofuel production, the industry is moving away from lab and pilot production to commercial production.

It is as we move to production scale – the valley of death – where biotech companies continue to struggle. High profile companies have reported difficulties in scaling up their processes in the past year. How are fermentation, cell culture and biochemical engineering researchers going about resolving these issues? What new reactor designs are being developed? How can we develop processes that have increased productivity and yields that lead to reduced CAPEX and feedstock costs that drive process economics? How are upstream and downstream processes being combined to give higher quality products and greener use of resources? These are questions that we will be asking, and answering, at RAFT X.

The RAFT series has been a mainstay of the calendar for fermentation scientists for a generation. RAFT X will bring together academic, industrial and government researchers in a location conducive to lively discussion, debate and learning. We hope that the speakers and delegates will share their ideas, problems and challenges and come up with solutions that benefit the community as a whole. 2013 is a critical moment for the biotech industry and RAFT X will be a forum for those looking to make a difference. Join us in November and contribute to breaking the commercial barriers that have been slowing the uptake of the biotechnology and green chemical industries for decades.

Written by E. Timothy Davies, PhD, Green Biologics Ltd. He is also member of the SIMB board of directors and chair of RAFT X.

The 35th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals will be held April 29 – May 2, 2013 in Portland, Oregon, hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The 2013 Symposium will provide an exceptional forum for industrial, academic and government experts from around the world to learn about and discuss the latest progress and breakthroughs in bio-based fuels and chemicals research, development and deployment. The technical program will enable effective exchange of new scientific information among attendees.

Charles D. Scott & Raphael Katzen Awards | Register | Hotel Info | Exhibit

A total of 18 oral presentation sessions, 2 poster sessions as well as multiple special topics sessions are planned over three and a half days, with technical topics spanning feedstocks and conversion sciences to process development and biorefinery commercialization and sustainability. The program’s design will provide ample opportunities to engage in informal discussions and professional networking. Participants’ experience also will be enhanced by social activities and optional tours to explore the Portland area.

Call for Abstracts

The call for papers for the Thirty-fifth Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals has opened and the conference organizers invite you to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations. The deadline for abstract submissions is December 14, 2012. Submit an abstract.

Charles D. Scott & Raphael Katzen Awards

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2013 Charles D. Scott and Raphael Katzen Awards. Nominations submitted will be reviewed by the SBFC Awards Committee and winners will be announced on the website. Awards will be presented at the annual banquet, Thursday evening, May 2 at the Hilton Portland Hotel. Deadline for nominations is February 15, 2013. Learn more & download the nomination forms.