Category: Blog

Application deadline is April 20, 2016.

The Algae Foundation, ABO’s sister organization, is pleased to announce that it is offering $500 travel grants to attend the 10th Annual Algae Biomass Summit in Phoenix, AZ, from October 23 through October 26, 2016. The grants, for use only in attending ABS 2016, are intended to provide support for students attending the Algae Biomass Summit.

To qualify for consideration, the student must:

• Be an ABO Member
• Be an undergraduate, graduate student or pre-doctoral student or
• Be a PhD with a post-doctoral appointment and is currently involved in a full time academic research program for no longer than 2 years
• Submit an abstract to present a poster or oral presentation at ABS 2016 and be the presenting author of the abstract
• Provide a suggested budget to attend the Summit
• Provide a current letter of recommendation for ABS 2016 (See below)

The selection criteria is as follows:

• The relevance and scientific quality of the submitted abstract
• The student has not received a similar travel grant award in the last two years
• Only one travel grant per laboratory

The applicant must submit a letter of recommendation from a faculty member or department head on official letterhead including the following information:

• The letter must state that the student is expected to be active in the training or degree program at the time of the meeting, or, if the student has completed their terminal degree, the actual date of completion.

All applications and materials should be sent to:

• Barb Scheevel, Algae Foundation Administrative Coordinator
• Email: bscheevel@algaebiomass.org
• Address:
  • 125 St. Paul Street, P.O. Box 369
  • Preston, MN 55965

Student Travel Grant Application deadline is April 20, 2016.

Selection Process – Selection is made by the Algae Foundation Travel Grant Selection Committee. The awards are highly competitive. If a grant recipient cannot present the accepted abstract, the recipient MUST notify the Algae Foundation as soon as possible. The grant will be rescinded and awarded to an alternate.

Award Notification: Awardees will be notified by May 20, 2016.

This year BIO’s World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology will be in sunny San Diego, April 17-20, 2016.

This is the world’s largest industrial biotechnology event for business leaders, investors, and policy makers in biofuels, biobased products, and renewable chemicals.

ABO’s executive director and several member companies will be presenting a session titled “Charting the New Algae Industry Roadmap.”

ABO members will also appear in sessions such as:

• Current State of Technology in Algae Cultivation;
• Algae Technology Development Progress: Algae Testbed Public Private Partnership Progress and Research Results; and
•  Strategies for Sustainable Algal Biofuels Production.

Check out the full list of breakout sessions here.

Early bird rates expire March 17 so register soon!

 

 

Sign up for the upcoming Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership (ATP3) workshop, held in Santa Fe, NM on May 16-20, 2016.

Lectures will cover everything from the fundamentals of culture management to operations at production scale. Participants will get the chance to move out of the auditorium to get hands-on experience in the lab.

ATP3 offers superior formal and informal education and training in the use of microalgae as feedstock for biofuels and coproducts, through hands-on learning opportunities, workshops, and seminars held at ATP3 partner sites and selected public events.

Click here for details. 

Algae’s benefits just keep on accruing: it produces fuels, it can purify wastewaters, it consumes CO2, it is nutritious and, it turns out, it is also incredibly strong. Researchers at the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) recently measured this by studying single-celled algae organisms called diatoms. Their more specific focus was on the frustules: the cell walls encasing the diatoms.

The Caltech scientists isolated these frustules and conducted bend tests with them to adjudicate their strength. The result? They discovered that these frustules had the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any known biological materials. As an article in the Independent points out, that means frustules are stronger than bone, teeth or antlers.

For more details, visit the original article here.

Matrix Genetics, a biotechnology company that has developed a method to genetically modify cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), has teamed up with Proterro, a biotechnology company with unique photobioreactor technology, to produce high-value nutritional products from Spirulina.

Spirulina, a type of cyanobacteria, is naturally a nutrient powerhouse: it provides a concentrated source of protein, vitamins and antioxidants with a small amount of healthy fats as well. Matrix has been the first company to successfully harness and increase those characteristics through genetic modification of Spirulina. In fact, Matrix can produce different strains of Spirulina with specific traits depending on the desired output.

This ability teams up wonderfully with Proterro’s photobioreactor system. Proterro’s technology converts the carbon in waste CO2 into valuable products ranging from biochemicals to nutrients and vitamins. More concisely, Matrix’s Spirulina, a photosynthetic strain of cyanobacteria that captures CO2 as it grows, will act as the input in Proterro’s process and will be converted into high-value nutritional products.

Paving the way for commercial-scale production of Spirulina, this partnership represents a big step forward for the algae industry.