Abstract
Dear Colleagues:
Over the years we have been telling the story of how diverse players come together to expand the global bioeconomy. Collaborations between different stakeholders is essential for negotiating the scientific, technical, market, and policy challenges that set the stage for technology innovation and eventual deployment. In many respects, our journal evolved out of the need for a collaborative venture that sought to help our diverse stakeholders negotiate this stage of industrial biotechnology development. Eleven years ago, the Industrial and Environmental Section of the Biotechnology Industrial Organization (BIO) and Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers created Industrial Biotechnology (IB) journal. By connecting our respective networks of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and policy specialists we have been able to build an expanded network of industrial biotechnology leaders with a higher degree of connectivity. This allows IB and BIO to tap into the exciting transformational activities in which members of our community are engaged. From the beginning, Co-Editor-in-Chief Glenn Nedwin and I have been active with the Industrial and Environmental Section of BIO, and Brent Erickson has served as Consulting Editor of IB. Thus, this has truly been a collaborative venture over the 11 years of the journal.
To strengthen this collaboration, BIO and Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. recently announced an agreement in which IB will be the official journal of the BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology. BIO's World Congress is the world's largest industrial biotechnology event that brings together many of the shakers and movers that are driving innovation for the global bioeconomy, and IB adroitly chronicles and captures a range of perspectives on the exciting science, technology, markets, and policy efforts that define the innovation space for industrial biotechnology. Working together, BIO and IB can help our community identify challenges to and explore opportunities for expanding the global bioeconomy. We at IB look forward to engaging the industrial biotechnology community during the upcoming World Congress.
BIO's Industrial and Environmental Section is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, and for those of us planning to attend the World Congress being held in Montreal, Canada, July 19–22, we have cause to celebrate. It is a good time to pause and reflect on the accomplishments of the Section and, to this end, IB brings you a thoughtful commentary from Brent Erickson entitled “The Biobased Economy at a Crossroads: 15 Years of Progress and Next Steps.” BIO represents a major hub in the industrial biotechnology network, and this position places Brent and his BIO colleagues in an excellent position to observe trends, opportunities, and challenges associated with this economic sector. Whether it is tracking changes in government policies, scientific and technology game changers, or trends in consumers' needs and expectations, Brent is in an excellent position to follow and analyze where we have been and where we are going. I believe that our readers will find his commentary insightful and of much value.
Venture capitalists have always been a major collaborator in industrial biotechnology innovation. To help us grasp the extent of this collaboration, Gunter Festel and Christian Rammer, two of our previous contributors to IB, have coauthored a very informative assessment of VC investment in industrial biotechnology companies. As our readers might imagine, the extent and diversity of this investment have varied over time depending on the state of the technology, markets, and government policy. VC investment has been critical for entrepreneurs to transverse the “valley of death” that we frequently need to cross in deploying new technology. This assessment provides some good and bad news for the future role of VC in driving industrial biotechnology innovation.
The World Congress and IB combined network is international in scope. We have sought to understand and to transmit the lessons learned by thought leaders and stakeholders from different parts of the world. In this issue of the journal we report on industrial biotechnology innovations and development in the east and west. From the east we have a very thoughtful Catalyzing Innovation feature from Editorial Board member Dr. Jibin Sun and his colleague Jinshan Li, both associated with the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, China. I had the honor to visit this institute a year ago to learn about the cutting-edge research being carried out by the Institute's scientists. As in other parts of the world, their mission is to develop eco-friendly industrial biotechnology development that takes advantage of regional resources, markets, and policies.
Our second story comes by way of Germany, coauthored by Florence Aeschelmann, Staff Scientist, and Michael Carus, founder and Managing Director, nova-Institut, Hürth, Germany. An understanding by stakeholders of current industrial activities and future market trends is essential for the strategic introduction of new products and technologies. Thus, we are fortune to be able to share with our readers an update to a market report that was published by these two colleagues in IB 2 years ago. This is a report rich in details about the biobased content of key polymers that are currently in the market and global bioplastics production capacities, just to name a couple of important metrics. As with many components of the global biobased economy, the biopolymers and bioplastics markets are very dynamic and entrepreneurs must be nimble and astute in identifying and developing market opportunities.
Researchers from around the world are collaborative partners in industrial biotechnology development. Whether they are exploring the physical properties of biobased products such as yeast paste from ethanol production, as reported by Bofo et al., or the life cycle performance of Ingeo™ polylactide production, as reported by Vink et al., our scientific and technical research colleagues represent major hubs of our industrial biotechnology innovation. As always, we seek the collaboration of our readers in helping IB identify researchers that are willing to share original research content with our community.
Collaboration has been essential to the successful deployment of industrial biotechnology for the global bioeconomy. Ongoing and expanded cooperation will be necessary to continue the gains and impacts that we have already achieved!