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Industrial biotechnology

Industrial biotechnology

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SINTEF's initiative within Industrial biotechnology contributes to ensure a future sustainable bio economy. In Industrial biotechnology enzymes and microorganisms are used to create products in the fields of fine- and bulk chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food and feed, paper, textiles, energy, materials and polymers.

Contact person

Håvard Sletta
Research Manager
915 44 429

Expertise

Biopharmaceuticals, medical technology and nanomedicine

Discovery, characterisation and production of biopharmaceuticals have been an important research area at SINTEF for more than 25 years. Main focus has been development of microbial production processes. We have established numerous methods, technologies, assays and laboratories to support this activity. Medical technology and Nanomedicine is rapidly growing research areas in SINTEF, where we focus on development of nanoparticles tailored for drug delivery, biosensors, and new solutions for therapy and diagnostics.
Heidi Johnsen
Research Manager
982 43 914

Environmental Biotechnology and Microbiology

Microbial bioprocesses is an important research area at SINTEF Industry. Department of Biotechnology and Nanomedicine has for the last ten years worked with microbial processes related to environmental technology. Examples are conversion of various types of feedstock to biofuel and platform chemicals, expertise within degradation of crude oil and other unwanted and recalcitrant chemicals in nature and bioreactors, and microfouling/biofilm formation on various surfaces from water systems to ship hulls.
Sidsel Markussen
Research Scientist
930 85 978

Food and Feed Microbiology and Biochemistry

Food and feed products may undergo both wanted and unwanted microbial, biochemical and chemical processes and changes during production and storage, e.g. lactic acid fermentation of milk products, microbial and enzymatic ripening of cheese, meat and fish products, and microbial, enzymatic and chemical deterioration of food products during storage. Different strategies may be used to control, promote or prevent these processes. Biotechnological processes may also be used to produce food and feed ingredients, e.g. polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Kjell Domaas Josefsen
Senior Research Scientist
930 86 027

Mass spectrometry and separation science in Biotechnology

Biological and biotechnological systems are often very complex, containing a large number (hundreds to thousands) of distinct chemical compounds. The use of mass spectrometry (MS) coupled to chromatographic separation (GC, LC, IC, FFF) allows for sensitive and robust quantification (ng/ml and below) of one or several selected compounds. This can be done even when the compound(s) of interest is present at very low concentration and in complex mixtures with closely related molecules. No other analytical technique can provide the same combination of sensitivity, selectivity and specificity for biological systems.
Kolbjørn Zahlsen
Senior Research Scientist
986 93 199

Systems and synthetic biology

SINTEF Industry, Department of Biotechnology and Nanomedicine has been and currently is coordinating and participating in several transdisciplinary national and international projects aiming at systems scale understanding of microbial cells. The aim is to develop them into efficient microbial cell factories by means of metabolic engineering and applying top-down Synthetic Biology and metabolic engineering approaches.
Alexander Wentzel
Senior Research Scientist
932 00 776

Projects

Mucoprotect – A novel generic system for targeted delivery of oral vaccines

10 August 2018

Vaccines are by far the most important tool in preventing disease in Norwegian aquaculture. Without the systematic use of efficient vaccines industrialisied fish farming would be an impossibility. Despite this, 53 million salmon were lost in Norway in 2017 due to illness and injury, also related to salmon lice treatment. In the project we will develop novel, clever vaccines based on nanoparticles, tailored for oral vaccination.

SIP GUT: Development of tools for gut microbiota research

25 September 2020

The gut microbiota are the microorganisms that live in the gastrointestinal tract. They play a fundamental role in health and disease of the host. Detailed understanding of gut microbiota–host interactions is therefore of great importance as this may be used to find new treatments to various diseases and increase the well-being of humans and animals.

TrippelTarg - Triple Targeting of Biodegradable Nanoparticles for Treatment of Cancer

25 September 2020

SINTEF want to further develop a targeted treatment strategy that has shown promising effects in animals with patient-derived tumors. The strategy is based on the use of nanoparticles developed by SINTEF containing a cytostatic drug.
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Laboratories

Fermentation laboratory at SINTEF

SINTEF has a nationally leading research laboratory for development of microbial and cell based production processes. The laboratory has robotic equipment for miniaturized cultivation, large capacity incubators for shake flasks, laboratory fermentors (1-3 L) equipped for extensive process control and monitoring, and a pilot plant with two fermenters (50 and 300 L) for scale-up studies and small productions.

High throughput screening facility, Trondheim

The robotic screening facility at SINTEF are optimized for high throughput analytical and cultivation work and enables us to process of thousands of samples or cultures per day.

Mass spectrometry - Advanced research-based analyses

We perform research-based mass spectrometric (MS) and high-throughput (HTS) analyses for SINTEF, academia and industry.
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News

How safe are the new Covid vaccines?

14 January 2021

The new vaccines designed to combat the Covid-19 virus have been developed in record time, causing some people to be sceptical of taking them. Should we be worried about side effects? Norwegian SciTech News has been talking to two research scientists about this issue.

EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC: EU initiative supports research on future medical chemistry

14 June 2019

Use EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC’s newly funded EU-OPENSCREEN-DRIVE project to advance your research now.

Experiments show that an “unknown” enzyme fights inflammation

20 November 2018

An enzyme that normally repairs damaged DNA may be the key to a new treatment for inflammatory diseases.
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