The Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME will be represented on this year’s BIOTECHNICA in Hannover. From 8th-10th of October scientist will present research findings from different topics at the joint Fraunhofer stand in Hall 9, Booth E 09. This year focus is on the production of biopharmaceuticals in plants and the development of innovative detection technologies.

The 11th Malaria Meeting will be held on November 08 and 09 2013 at the Fraunhofer IME Aachen. The Malaria Meeting ist a joint event of the of the Malaria group (section Antiparasitic Chemotherapy) of the Paul-Ehrlich-Society (PEG e.V.) in cooperation with the German Society for Tropical Medicine and international Health (DTG e.V.). The meeting will be hosted by the Fraunhofer IME together with RWTH Aachen University.

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The main path of entry of veterinary pharmaceuticals into the environment is via agricultural areas where liquid manure is used as a fertilizer. Realistic exposure assessments must therefore take into account the transformation of active pharmaceutical ingredients during manure storage. Fraunhofer IME is currently involved in several projects investigating the respective test procedures. Within this scope, the joint project partners (the ECT Oekotoxicologie GmbH, the University of Gießen and Fraunhofer IME, sponsored by the German Federal Environment Agency) are currently searching for laboratories to participate in an international ring test that aims to develop an OECD test guideline on the transformation of veterinary pharmaceuticals in manure.

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The head of the IME Applied Ecology Division, Prof. Dr. Christoph Schäfers, habilitated in ecotoxicology at the university Koblenz-Landau with the professorial dissertation “Ecological approaches to aquatic ecotoxicology, challenged by the needs of risk assessment“ and the presentation “Microevolutionary consequences of anthropogenic impacts on the environment”. He received a professorship at the University of Münster at the start of 2013.

The publication by K. Schlich, K. Terytze, K. and K. Hund-Rinke: Effect of TiO2 nanoparticles in the earthworm reproduction test was identified by "Environment Progress" as being of special interest to the progress in the Environmental Sciences field. Environment Progress alerts the scientific community to breaking journal articles considered to represent the best in Environmental Science research.

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As part of the Innovation Union flagship initiative, the European Commission organized the first Innovation Convention which took place December 5th-6th, in Brussels. The EU FP6 project Pharma-Planta, which was coordinated by Fraunhofer IME, was one of only 48 projects invited to the convention, and was selected from more than 450 applications. It was also the only Fraunhofer project at the convention and the only one with a 100% life sciences content. The project ran from February 2004 to October 2011 and was lauded as a great success by representatives of the European Commission at its closing meeting. The project achieved all its goals, including the development of an approved production process for plant-based pharmaceuticals and the completion of the first human clinical trial of a plant-derived monoclonal antibody.

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The EU-funded project Pharma-Planta has succeeded in producing an anti-HIV antibody in plants and has tested it in humans, with a positive result. This antibody could one day become an inexpensive component used to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The "Phase I" clinical trial was launched at the University of Surrey Clinical Research Centre (UK) in June and has just been completed. Further clinical testing will be required to assess the new drug's effectiveness. The Pharma-Planta project has delivered not only a clinical product tested on humans but also a production platform and facility that can be used to produce other protein-based pharmaceuticals.

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