Biotechnology

Humanity is facing significant challenges in the coming decades, including climate change and enviromental degradation, sustainable development, public health or food security, to name some. We at NORCE believe that biotechnology holds the key to address some of these challenges in a responsible, sustainable and innovative manner.

Biotechnology is the use of living organisms or part of them to make products, processes or services such as medicines, vaccines, feed, food, materials, energy sources and more.

Biotechnology in NORCE is a crosscutting theme, which involves several research groups and departments, and it is our ambition that it will serve to support the future bioeconomy, inspired by circularity principles, in other words: making the most of renewable resources to create a sustainable future. Our long-term aim is to contribute to green competitiveness and regional development by fostering sustainable value creation with limited environmental and climatic footprints.

Biotechnology in NORCE entails the following aspects:

• Discovery and development of new bio-resources, including enzymes or microorganisms (bacteria, yeast, fungi and microalgae)
• Design, optimization and upscaling of bioprocesses (such as enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and cultivation), including integration of side streams as feedstocks, for example CO2, or organic waste streams as a source of nitrogen, phosphate and carbon
• Sustainability analysis, includingeconomic viability of bioprocesses, and economic, social and environmental impacts (life cycle and techno-economical assessments)
• Ensuring safe use of biotechnologies, including assessment of ethical, legal, social and sustainableaspects and regulatory compliance
  
  To be able to cover these aspects, NORCE invests and maintains important research infrastructure, such as molecular biology and microbiology laboratories, pilot halls, analytical instruments and large equipment such as bioreactors. Altogether it allows us to go from concept validation to scaling and regulatory compliance, ultimately bringing groundbreaking biotechnological solutions to market.

Key infrastructures related to biotechnology includes:

• National bioprocessing and fermentation centre (NBioC): NORCE is hosting a national center and open research infrastructure for the development of new bioresources and bioproducts supporting Norway's strategy on the bio economy
• NORCE Technology Park Risavika: NORCE is running laboratories, pilot halls, and outdoor areas designed for the development of industrial biotechnology processes, as well as upscaling them to pilot scale.
• National algae pilot Mongstad (NAM): NORCE is operating the UiB-owned national pilot plant for cultivating photosynthetic microalgae, next to the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM).