IBioIC's Skills programmes
MSc programme
IBioIC’s MSc programme continues to flourish with 18 students starting their industrial placements on 23 May 2022.
Project titles
Enhanced microbial production of vaccine components through strain engineering
Upstream development and optimisation of an industrial bioprocess
Characterisation of therapeutic phages in a multispecies biofilm model for canine oral health
Optimisation of CIP Methodologies used within an Industrial Scale Bioreactor System
Development of a novel molecular diagnostic test for the detection of animal pathogen biomarkers
Test method development for anerobic and aerobic biodegradation
Investigation of effects of cross-linkers and fibrous structures on properties of collagen films
Novel material investigation for use in plant-based coatings, gels and film applications
BioMide - bio produced nylon to enable recyclable mulitlayer film packaging
Setup and baseline of 5L fermentation vessels
Sustainable Seaweed Polymers for Next Generation Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs)
Hawthorn as a potential cardiovascular nutraceutical - surveying chemical components, toxicology and ethnobotanic data
AAV Production
Chemical Profiling and Recovery of Specialty Seaweed Polymers
From by-products to novel protein-based feed and food ingredients
Kerecycle: processing wool with biocatalysts
Supporting the growth of Scotland’s Industrial Biotechnology Sector – Innovation Opportunities and Unmet Needs
Host companies
Ingenza Ltd
Fixed Phage
MiAlgae
Biotangents Ltd
Impact Solutions
Devro plc
GSK
Marine Biopolymers
AskBio
Horizon Proteins
Prickly Thistle Ltd
IBioIC
“The industrial placement was an attractive element to the course and serves students in providing them with an in depth look at industry production or R&D. In the case of my placement, Ingenza is a well-known company with involvement in topics from pharmaceuticals to biofuels. They gave me a vast amount of practical work which compounded my theoretical knowledge learned from the year. ”
PhD programme
Two 100% IBioIC funded studentships were offered on our Open Call#10 to start in October 2022.
The projects awarded are:
‘Generating a novel high-affinity multi-targeting therapeutic antibody for Multiple Myeloma’, Glasgow Caledonian University in conjunction with The Antibody Company and
‘Microbial Synthesis of L-DOPA from Waste Poly(ethylene terephthalate)’ from the University of Edinburgh and Impact Solutions.
HND programme
Fuel Change was run as a pilot at Glasgow Clyde College during the 2021/2022 academic year. The programme took place as a 10- week challenge as part of the Retain and Inspire programme for the HND Industrial Biotechnology (IB) students. Our Retain and Inspire programme aims to encourage students to continue their journey in IB and give them complimentary skills to their HND. Fuel Change fulfils that by giving them skills such as team working and collaboration, presentation and communication skills, critical thinking, problem solving and resilience. This, in turn, benefits the Scottish bioeconomy for the future.
The team chose a challenge set by Intelligent Growth Solutions to work through in their 10-weeks. This challenge surrounds the future of agriculture and vertical farming. The group worked hard gathering intelligence about vertical farming and agriculture generally, coming up with ideas and refining solutions before presenting to a “judging” panel consisting of Jennifer Tempany (CEO, Fuel Change), John Rafferty (Vice Principal, Glasgow Clyde College) and Ian Archer (Technical Director, IBioIC).
The team’s final solution involved using abandoned buildings in Glasgow to create vertical farms. Using a combination of traditional soil systems and hydroponics as well as reusing and recycling local materials has created a solution that is almost truly circular.