Mr. William Mawuko Kodzo Siegu, a Ph.D. student involved in the HELVA project, recently captivated audiences with his insightful research on an innovative preculturing strategy designed to boost the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) using sodium acetate as the unique carbon source. His presentation took place at the Biocatalysis Conference for Biological Transformation Along Renewable Value Chains, held from November 18 to 20, 2024, in Düsseldorf, Germany. This conference brought together an impressive array of biomanufacturing industry leaders, including representatives from Michelin (France), BYK Chemie GmbH, Repsol Technology (Spain), and AstraZeneca (Sweden), as well as esteemed academics and donor organizations from North Rhine-Westphalia.

On Tuesday last week (29th of October), we were privileged to host in ICRI-BioM Prof. Róża Szweda, Head of the Programmable Polymers Laboratory (Center for Advanced Materials, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, PL).

During previous three weeks (7th – 25th of October), we were hosting Guillaume Michaluszko from IPCMS (Institut de physique et chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg, France), our partner in the Polish-French NAWA project entitled “New organic near-infrared luminophores exhibiting thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF): synthesis, spectroscopy and optoelectronic devices”.

On Thursday 5th of September 2024 we had a special day in the history of ICRI-BioM. On that day, Mr. Adam Pawłowski from the Nanostructures and Interfaces Group defended his Master thesis, entitled: “Preparation and characterization of new bio-inspired organic luminophores with potential chiroptical properties"

Tannaz Soltanolzakerin Sorkhabi is a Ph.D. scholar from the Biomaterials group at ICRI-BioM working under the supervision of Prof. dr hab. Vignesh Kumaravel and Prof. dr hab. Joanna Pietrasik. In the summer of 2024, she embarked on an extraordinary journey as an intern at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at Ulm University, Germany, supported by the prestigious Erasmus+ project scholarship. Under the guidance of renowned Prof. Frank Rosenau, she spent two transformative months immersed in cutting-edge microbiological research. Tannaz’s primary focus was on exploring the antimicrobial applications of graphene quantum dots derived from biomass through a green approach, aimed at developing bioderived materials to combat superbugs, a critical issue in public health.

It was a double hot day yesterday: not only the temperature reached 37 ºC but we also had the first defense of a student: Dominik Dusza just received his engineer degree defending a thesis entitled “Modelling of the dehalogenation of chloro-alkanes catalyzed by F430 coenzyme” prepared within the NCN Sheng grant.