Bio-research partnership establish collaboration

Edmonton, AB – A new bio-research partnership is aimed at enabling agriculture, forest and bioindustries to collaborate to develop new products, reduce waste and add value to biomass feedstock.

The Alberta Bioconversion Network, located at the University of Alberta’s Agri-Food Discovery Place, will help to gain value from Alberta’s huge biomass resource, integrating farms and forests to play a bigger role in areas like energy, health and manufacturing.

The network will advance a ’zero waste’ approach to the products developed by its participants, which includes public research organizations and private companies. The network is starting up with $3.5-million in funding, with $3 million coming from the Alberta government and $500,000 from private sector partners including local and international companies.

“We’re excited to play the coordinating role, matching disciplines and technologies to solutions,” said Dr David Bressler, the network’s director and a professor at the University of Alberta Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences. “The network will provide access to research facilities and also the talented people and experience that multi-partner projects like this need to bring new ideas to the next stage of development, including prototyping and field testing.”

The network will connect experts in the fields of thermal, biological, and chemical science from across many jurisdictions nationally and internationally.