Legislation still requires safety studies through animal experiments for drugs, medical devices, chemicals, novel foods and other product categories. Scientists that work with lab animals are often seen as cruel individuals. But from my experience I can inform you that most scientist, who are instructed to work with mice or other animals, suffer. It´s not…

In this edition I invited cosmetic innovations expert Helmi Maria Ala-Mutka to report about how sustainability is influencing the cosmetic industry and what innovative alternatives need to fulfil for replacing petroleum-based ingredients. 1)      Why are petroleum-derived ingredients still used in many cosmetic products on the market? Mineral oil and Fossil-fuel based ingredients are all-rounder ingredients…

We live in a world that is strongly based on petroleum. We use it as fuel for combustion engines, plastics, agrochemicals, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. Knowing full well that it´s not environmentally friendly and it won´t last forever. In this edition we look into the bio-revolution of the pharma industry. The pharmaceutical industry is…

We live in a world that is strongly based on petroleum. We use it as fuel for combustion engines, plastics, agrochemicals, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. Knowing full well that it´s not environmentally friendly and it won´t last forever. In this edition we look into how solar energy can replace petroleum in chemical production. All…

We live in a world that is strongly based on petroleum. We use it as fuel for combustion engines, plastics, agrochemicals, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. Knowing full well that it´s not environmentally friendly and it won´t last forever. This edition is focused on agrochemicals. Chemical biocides (pesticides, fungicides, herbicides) and fertilizers have been the…

We live in a world that is strongly based on petroleum. We put it in everything with a combustion engine, plastics, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. Knowing full well that it´s not environmentally friendly and it won´t last forever. So let´s look at the alternatives. “Bioplastics” Humanity is striving to create something that lasts, something…

Are simulations the new wet lab experiments? Cell culture experiments constantly fail, because most of the time we hardly know what we are doing. It is research in its purest form. We know something should be possible, but we are not sure how exactly. So we slowly feel our way in the dark, moving forward…

Nanotechnology is a fascinating field of innovation, since it literally opens up a new dimension for every industry. Per definition a nanomaterial is smaller than 100 nm in one dimension. A simple example that everyone knows is a soap bubble. While the surface of a soap bubble is clearly visible by eye, the wall thickness…

A technology that impacts various industries. Cell-free protein production is not a new way of producing a meat alternative. It is a discipline of synthetic biology, where scientist work on producing functional proteins (enzymes, small molecules, vaccines, etc.) through cell extracts instead of whole cells. To obtain these extracts cells are broken open (yes, sorry…