Research Laboratory International
A fuel of the future is being developed in Adlershof: 50 employees of the company Algenol Biofuels, a subsidiary of the American firm Algenol, are involved in producing biofuels from cyanobacteria which are blue algae found in ponds and in the sea. Their specialty: like plants they are capable of photosynthesis of oxygen, of turning sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugar. The Irish company TheraKine Biodelivery focuses more on medical application and also conducts research in Adlershof.
“We are changing their metabolic cycle,” Dirk Radzinski explains who is responsible for international business at Algenol Biofuels. “By channeling in certain genes, the cyanobacteria produce ethanol instead of sugar which is directly applicable as a fuel.” The yield is far superior compared to previously used procedures. Algenol is targeting an annual commercial production of around 80,000 litres of ethanol per hectare. Corn yields only around 4,000 litres. This is not science fiction: The American parent company Algenol is already operating a pilot plant in Florida.
Without the background from Adlershof none of this would be possible. In 2004, the biochemist Dan Kramer founded the company Cyano Biotech in Berlin, which later became Cyano Biofuels, a spin-off from the Humboldt-University of Berlin. Over the years, the company produced a unique collection of around 2,000 strains of cyanobacteria. Algenol took over the firm Cyano Biofuels in 2010. There was no alternative to this decision. According to Radzinski: “Nobody in the world had this kind of expertise.”
TheraKine has been clearly shaped by the American experience, but is based in Ireland. The biotech company is managed by the Californian start-up pioneer Stan Yakatan. At the company’s subsidiary TheraKine Biodelivery in Adlershof, five employees are working on new therapeutic procedures for eye diseases such as macular degeneration, uveitis or diabetic retinopathy.
Treatment has, up to now, involved injecting drugs into the veins. However, during the process, only traces of the drug find their way into the inside of the eye. Researchers from Berlin have found a new approach. Andreas Voigt, biophysicist and chief scientist of TheraKine Biodelivery, explains: “The active substance is packed into tiny capsules which are directly applied to the eye.
The capsules open slowly and continuously release a dosis of the drug into the eye over a long period of time.” The capsules are about 50 micrometres long and consist of salts of fatty acids with wax-like properties. The active substance is embedded into these as nanoparticles. Only few water molecules get through to the capsule’s interior where they are absorbed by the active substances. They swell up and create tiny canals through the capsule’s wall.
The reasons for locating TheraKine Biodelivery in Adlershof in 2009, rather than the United States, were of a scientific as well as a private nature. Andreas Voigt: “My entire network and my friends are here. I shall not be going anywhere else.”
By Mirko Heinemann for Adlershof Special