Plant biotechnology at LIFE strengthened by huge Novo Nordisk Foundation grant to DTU

The Novo Nordisk Foundation has granted DKK 700 million for a biotechnology centre at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) over the next ten years. LIFE has one of the world’s leading research and educational environments within plant biotechnology and this elite research area will also benefit from the grant, as one-fifth of the research programme is expected to be managed from LIFE, with Birger Lindberg Møller at the helm. eLIFE has talked to Birger about the implications of this.

 

By Jacob Søby Bang, LIFE Communication

 

Birger, it was recently announced that DTU will be receiving a DKK 700 million grant for the establishment of Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (NNFCB).. What impact will this specifically have on LIFE and on the interaction between the University of Copenhagen and DTU?

Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (NNFCB) is divided into five research programmes with Dr. Bernhard Palsson from University of California, San Diego as the internationally outstanding head of the centre. The research programme which I will be heading has the title “Plant Pathway Discovery” and is based on the large research expertise that has been built up at LIFE within this research area. The center’s research in this field will therefore mainly take place at LIFE. So, in addition to having a research area at LIFE strengthened in which we already rank among the global elite, we will also have an excellent opportunity to intensify our collaboration with DTU in areas in which we have complementary expertise. At LIFE, we have a first-rate overview of the entire plant biochemical field, and we are good at mapping biosynthetic pathways in plants. We also possess special competencies in identifying the genes coding for the production of bioactive natural products with interesting properties either for medical applications or as flavourings or fragrances. Some of these classes of compounds, such as terpenoids, have such complex structures that the cost of chemically synthesising them is very high so we obtain these substances from rare plants or plants which are difficult to grow. In this context, we at LIFE can contribute to identifying the genes responsible for the synthesis of the natural products in plants. One of our other special strengths at LIFE is that we are quite good at isolating and handling the membrane proteins typically involved in these processes, but which are notoriously very difficult to work with. This could, for example, be cytochrome P450 enzymes, which catalyse the central steps in the production of many different classes of bioactive natural products. Only a few laboratories worldwide are capable of handling this class of enzymes as well as we are. DTU, on the other hand, has extensive experience expressing genes in microorganisms and in optimising the processes. Collaboration takes time, but joint funding always makes collaborating easier. Such a large grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation spanning two universities optimises the chances of us collaborating rather than building up parallel areas of expertise. And this is a good thing, seeing that we are facing plenty of research challenges already, and that, in a small country like Denmark, it is important that internal collaboration works. This makes it far easier for Danish researchers to shoulder the projects and thus compete internationally and attract top international researchers to Denmark. At the same time, this creates outstanding educational environments. In order to ensure the best possible collaboration with DTU in the new NNF centre, I will be appointed professor at DTU – a professorship that will account for 20% of my time while at the same time maintaining my full-time employment at LIFE.

 

What will be the main focus area of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (NNFCB)?

In brief, the section that I will be heading will focus on examining how plants are able to produce so many different bioactive natural products. Once we have identified the genes that code for the formation of especially valuable substances (for instance substances that may be used for the treatment of cancer or other diseases), these plant genes will be inserted in microorganisms so that these will now function as effective production organisms for the substances. The production will primarily take place in fermentation tanks. In this way, we will not have to isolate the substances from rare plant or plants that are difficult to grow. Such projects will also serve as pioneering projects demonstrating how, in the long term, we will be able to replace a number of the energy-demanding and environmentally hazardous chemical processes we are using today with far more sustainable enzyme-catalysed processes. We all know that, in the future, we cannot base our society on fossil fuels. However, the development of the technologies to replace fossil fuel-based chemical processes with sustainable biological processes takes time and it also requires extensive research. Large investments are therefore required to get the ball rolling. That is why it is so important that the Novo Nordisk Foundation centre gets the opportunity to conduct the basic research required to create a stronger foundation for this development. The name of the centre has been chosen on this basis.

At the new centre, we will be focusing on producing desirable plant natural products in microorganisms. In short, at the new Novo Nordisk Foundation centre, we will focus on processes which can be performed in fermentation tanks and which therefore do not require the large agricultural areas that will, for example, be necessary in connection with the production of biomass for producing bioenergy. In the long term, however, and in the next phase, this development is to be taken to the next level in that we will be producing new bioactive natural products and biopolymers directly in algae, mosses or plants. Algae and mosses can be grown in closed tanks, but if, in future, we are to secure a stable supply of biomass which can meet the large need for the production of bioenergy (currently bioethanol, but later much more valuable substances), it is crucial that we make use of the plants growing in our fields. Such plants must then be optimised for the combined production of food and biomass, where the biomass fraction can be efficiently converted into fine chemicals to replace the chemical products that we obtain from the petrochemical industry today. The achievement of this is the precondition for realising the vision of a shift to a bio-based society.

 

What specific impact will this grant have at LIFE?

The research to be conducted in respect of mapping new biosynthetic pathways will mainly take place at LIFE, whereas the expression of the biosynthetic pathways in microorganisms will mainly take place at DTU. The Novo Nordisk Foundation grant opens up the opportunity for LIFE to acquire more equipment for metabolomics, based primarily on LC-MS and GLC-MS. Additional optimisation is required of the MS and NMR units at the Department of Plant Biology and the Department of Food Science. The planned start-up date for the centre is 1 January 2011, so we will be busy hiring employees over the next few months. More than 30% of the employees and students at the Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology are foreigners. I cannot imagine the share of international researchers being lower than that in the new centre. We have thus managed to attract our head of centre, Bernhard Palsson, from University of California. But it will also be a golden opportunity to recruit Danes with impressive careers abroad for a continued international research career in Denmark. In this context, the centre offers excellent opportunities due to its ten-year perspective. Good biotechnology research environments require critical mass and state-of-the-art technology. More such surroundings at LIFE will contribute to better overall research environments.

 

How will this grant impact study programmes at LIFE?

Whether our students aim for a research career or employment in the private or public sector, I am convinced that it is extremely important for the students to become acquainted with and have a chance to work in research environments where people really love what they are doing. This gives most students a kick, which is important in how they view their own possibilities of contributing to Danish society. The centre also means increased internationalisation of our research environment, providing students with optimum chances of creating an international network early on – comprising both researchers and other students. In addition, the centre will make it easier for biotechnology students at LIFE to establish contact with DTU and vice versa, DTU students with a large interest in biology will find it far easier to get into contact with LIFE researchers. Large student mobility at all stages of a course of study is a good thing as it increases the chances of fruitful academic discussions among students and in the classes. The biology-biotechnology programme is based on strong academic environments. Now, a significant influx of resources will take place over a ten-year period, and this will, of course, result in the recruitment of more outstanding researchers for the field of plant biotechnology and mean that we will be able to attract even better Danish and foreign students at all levels. This provides the opportunity for even more committed teaching efforts and means that the academic environments in which thesis and PhD projects are carried out will be able to offer even better facilities.

 

There has been a really strong collaboration between the University of Copenhagen and DTU. Will this grant change anything about that?

As I mentioned earlier, the collaboration is to benefit from the complementary fields of expertise and I am looking forward to seeing that materialise. The LIFE researchers excel within some areas and the DTU researchers within others. We already have a close collaboration with DTU researchers and businesses, such as the project on the production of vanillin in yeast. We have provided the genes and the researchers at DTU are now optimising the production. The Novo Nordisk Foundation grant provides the opportunity for an even closer collaboration, which will allow us to understand each other even better and thus, to a higher degree, enable us to initiate new projects covering the interfaces between our fields of expertise, for instance based on metagenomics and the creation of stable systems consisting of various microorganisms benefiting mutually from the ability to convert substances.

Establishing the close collaboration with the Nano Science Center based on the UNIK grant within synthetic biology, has been a huge challenge and an extremely rewarding experience for me personally. It was the hardest and perhaps also the best application I have ever contributed to write. It took us several months to understand each other’s language, and it was only then that the projects in the interfaces between our fields of expertise could be identified and the application could be written. I am expecting a similar process in the collaboration with DTU, and, in the long term, this will ensure a far deeper collaboration than we have seen so far.

 

The extra resources which have now been added to LIFE’s elite research area within plant biotechnology will presumably require more space than we have today. Is there space enough for this at Frederiksberg Campus at all?

It is true that we are having serious space problems at the moment. For one thing, the Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology is in the middle of a major reorganisation, and, at the same time, we have never been as many people as we are at the moment. These problems will, of course, get worse at the beginning of next year, and I do not know as yet how they will be solved. The existing physical facilities are already fully utilised. Fortunately we have been successful in nurturing plans at the University of Copenhagen to establish the ‘Copenhagen Plant Science Center’ located at Frederiksberg Campus in new buildings the building of which should be completed in 2015. In order for a research environment to function in an optimum manner, a shared physical location and close contact are incredibly important. I am confident that LIFE’s management will come up with sensible solutions to our current space problems. But, of course, this is not easy seeing that there are also other environments, e.g. at the Department of Agriculture and Ecology, which are also facing major challenges in relation to finding space for all their researchers. Implementation of the recent plan to further expand the building to house the Copenhagen Plant Science Center would constitute the perfect setting for the even bigger and better research environments and study programmes which can now be realised thanks to the Novo Nordisk Foundation grant.

 

LIFE is well-known for its close business collaboration. Do the plans to establish the Copenhagen Plant Science Center take this collaboration into account?

Yes, absolutely. In its capacity as a physical focal point, the centre will facilitate the business sector’s approach to the research. As we have done so far, we need to focus on basic research, but we must also put our antenna out and be open to new options of business collaborations when the opportunities arise. Our basic research does not only aim to ensure that biotech companies in Denmark can hire excellent Danish employees. We also need to take out patents and, when possible, encourage our employees to start up new biotech companies. We also emphasised this in our application to the Novo Nordisk Foundation. This is what it takes if Denmark is to base its future on being a knowledge society. Otherwise, the major biotech companies will also go for the cheaper labour they can find in other countries, and we are going to lose the strong foothold that we have gained in the field of biotechnology and thus also a lot of interesting jobs. And that is a situation to be avoided at all costs.