Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is to set up a biotechnology laboratory in Chile, its first research centre in South America, following the signing of an agreement with the Chilean Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Alfred Gossner, chief financial officer of Fraunhofer, Europe’s largest applied research organisation, said, “The new Fraunhofer Centre for Systems Biotechnology in Chile will create links and bring forth innovations for new markets; links between Germany and Chile, between scientific disciplines, between pure research and the demands of private enterprises.”
Gossner signed the bilateral agreement with Juan Andrés Fontaine, the Chilean minister for commercial affairs, in the presence of the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Berlin.
The agreement acknowledges the extensive preparation work on both sides, and clears the way for the new research centre to be established in Santiago de Chile.
The Fraunhofer Center for Systems Biotechnology will be funded by INNOVAChile, which was created by the Chilean government’s economic development body CORFO, to attract world-class international research institutes to Chile, for joint research and development partnerships. Several organisations have been evaluated, but Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the first, and so far the only, to receive a funding commitment from the Chilean Government.
Partners on the Chilean side are the two universities Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV) and Universidad de Talca, and the private non-profit organisation Fundación Chile. The German partner is the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, headed by Rainer Fischer. The foundation of the Centre was actively supported by the German-Chilean Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
The Fraunhofer Center for Systems Biotechnology is the first research centre to be launched by the Fraunhofer Chile Research Foundation established on October 4, 2010, and it will work closely with Chilean research organisations and private enterprises. The research carried out at the new Centre will benefit from, and make a long-lasting contribution to, Chile’s pioneering spirit and economic strength, reflecting the country’s faith in a traditional economy based upon raw materials, agriculture, aquaculture and the sustainable use of natural resources.
Systems biotechnology is an emerging field in life sciences that aims to develop an understanding of the complex and dynamic processes in cells, organisms and even ecosystems at the systems level. This is achieved by creating computer models and mathematical simulations, which are then applied to problems in biotechnology using a combination of large-scale laboratory experiments and computational biology.
German and Chilean researchers will combine their strengths to develop and optimise a wide range of technologies that will be used to develop rapid tests for fish diseases and more effective fish vaccines (in partnership with Fundación Chile), to develop new nanotechnology solutions to remove pesticide residues from beverages and purify waste water (in partnership with Universidad de Talca) and to improve the performance of enzymes and increase the efficiency of biomass utilisation in the energy industry (in partnership with PUCV).
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