Biotechnology, which uses living organisms to create different products or processes, remains important in today’s production of food and drink. But it is also increasingly used for a wide range of industrial products, including medicines, where it combines ancient principles with cutting-edge technology.
‘We’ve used biotechnology for thousands of years to make cheese, to make beer, to make wine,’ said Michael O’Donohue, an expert in microbial enzymes and industrial biotechnology at France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE).
Now O’Donohue, who leads an EU-funded project called Bioindustry 4.0, together with a team of biotech experts from 10 European countries, are exploring how the same biotechnology principles can be used to create chemicals or clean up industrial waste with a far smaller environmental impact than traditional methods.
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