RWTH Team Receives 2018 BioRegionen Innovation Award

During this year’s German Biotechnology Days, which took place earlier this month in Berlin, RWTH researchers Dr. Felix Jakob, Professor Andrij Pich, and Professor Ulrich Schwaneberg were honored for their “GreenRelease for Plant Health” project. The Innovation Award is presented annually by the BioRegionen network for excellent ideas and patents in biotechnology and the life sciences.

The project aims to reduce the use of plant protection products in agriculture and thus to make a significant contribution to the sustainable production of healthy foods. At the heart of the GreenRelease technology is a universally chargeable microgel container which protects active compounds from adverse environmental conditions and releases them on demand. With the help of “anchor peptides,” the containers can be attached to a large variety of crops.

Felix Jakob is a research associate at the RWTH Chair of Biotechnology, Andrij Pich is head of the Functional and Interactive Polymers Research Department, and Ulrich Schwaneberg is Chair of Biotechnology at RWTH Aachen University. The three reseachers also collaborate on research at the DWI Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials. The Green Release technology has received funding in the amount of 2.3 million euros from the the GreenRelease Focus Lab at the Bioeconomy Science Center, BioSC for short.

Following an integrative strategy, the Bioeconomy Science Center conducts research for a sustainable bioeconomy. Since its foundation in 2010, it has pooled the expertise of the research and educational institutions RWTH Aachen University, the University of Bonn, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, and Forschungszentrum Jülich.