Govind Cb 2008

11

6 The role of communicating bioscience in Puerto Rico

I

prepared and published for this purposeareavailablethroughINDUNIV. One of the available documents is the Puerto Rico Bioscience Destination, now in its third edition. This yearly publication is generated and launched at the BIO Annual International Convention as promotional material from the P.R. Pavilion at this event. It is a publication of the Bioscience Cluster that promotes the island as a bioscience destination of choice. The 2008 edition was launched at BIOInternationalConventioninSan Diego (June 18-21). This booklet highlights the six main points of the life-sciences platform that P.R. offers to companies and organizations interested in establishing operations on the island. These components are infrastructure, positive business climate, global recognition, excellent location, experience, competitive workforce and the innovation cluster. Also available is a booklet entitled “What is Biotechnology”, developed specifically for high-school and college students. The booklet The only facility within 1,000 miles to offer highly (in Spanish) touches different specialized analytical and biotechnological service topics about biotechnology, among them: the origins of biotech, applications in biotech, the AVAILABLE SERVICE: biotechnology industry, what  Raw Material to Final  Characterization of Foreign Matter do I need to study to become  Products Analyses  Impurities & Particles a biotechnologist and other  Method Development  Surface Microscopy & Spectroscopy related facts. The booklet gives  Bioscience Testing:  Uncommon Analytical a general understanding of the Troubleshooting Testing: • Functional Genomic & science behind biotechnol• Polymorph by XRD ogy. There are other written Microarrays Test • Elemental Analyses resources available in both • Sequencing & Genomic • Organic Volatiles (OVI) printed and electronic form. • Proteomic (XRay, MS) Other material INDUNIV • Chromatography • Confocal Image recently has prepared is the Spanish version of the Biotechnology coloring book that the Council for Biotechnology Informationcreated.INDUNIVcolUPR Río Piedras laborated with CBI to translate Campus the book into Spanish, which is PO Box 21972 meant to impact elementarySan Juan PR 00931 school children. In this man787-282-7593 ner, the message can reach a 281-0997 broader spectrum of people. [email protected] The book is titled “ Look Closer w w w . MCC . COM . PR at Biotechnology” and contains valuable such information as exercises and drawings so children can color them. The book

NDUNIV Research Consortium was created to promote and catalyze effective collaboration among industry,academiaandgovernment to stimulate knowledge-based capabilities in P.R., develop the necessary strategies and action plans to promote innovation and position P.R. as a global best-practice location to choose for the life-sciences industry. The administration of the pharmaceutical and bioscience clusters is part of, Induniv’s role, which in exchange requires communicating the attributes of these sectors’ disciplines in terms of their contributions toward economic development and the value added to the community’s well-being. As part of this commitment, the communication aspect deals with promoting public awareness and

understanding of life science in general and bioscience in particular. The information-dissemination efforts complement the main activities toward the development of the bioscience sector among and within the strategic economic clusters. By educating the public and providing accurate information, the goal is to strengthentheunderstandingofbioscience and its contributions toward solutions dealing with our quality of life. Therefore, part of our mission within the P.R. BioscienceAlliance to attain this goal has been the generation of educational materials as one of our strategic objectives. Avariety of educational materials have been prepared to deliver information and messages targeted to the audiences identified within our broad community of partners. The materials

MATERIAL CHARACTERIZATION CENTER, INC.

focuses on the application of bioscience in food and agriculture. The main theme in the coloring book is the way bioscience impacts the various stages dealing with: 1) the growing of more food and nutritious plants; 2) helping the environment; 3) growing more food plants that improve our health plus are of value to our quality of life. The book is easy to read and will help children and adults alike have a better understanding of bioscience through simple and practical illustrations. As virtual tools to communicate biosciences, INDUNIV has established a series of websites that can be reached through the following domain names: www.induniv.org (INDUNIV);www.biosciencepr.org (P.R.BioAlliance);www.agbiopr.org (P.R. Research Seed Association); www.pharmapr.org(P.R.PharmaceuticalCluster);andwww.amcpuertorico.org(P.R.ScienceTeachersAssociation). Another contributing website is from the UPR Bayamón campus, which offers a virtual experience about bioscience with resources and reference materials. These websites are communication hubs where much of the material can be sourced in electronic format. These sites also help us present more information about the strategic clusters that INDUNIV administers. Moreover, through this network of websites, each organization posts important and relevant news plus events of interest to the industrial and general community about what is happening in the life-science sectors in P.R. One event relevant to life sciences is the annual Bio Week celebration, which is held the third week of September (this year Sept. 15-19). Throughout this week, all the aforementioned materials are going to be distributedinthevariousparticipating regions and at three ATI train stations. The intention is to reach more people from the community at large than in previous years. This week is a great opportunity to provide all these educational materials to highlight the importance and benefits that biotechnology affords in our life. The program for Bio Week can be sourced through these websites. We invite you to visit these sites and attend the Bio Week celebrations. 

Partnership to develop biofuels promotes Puerto Rico’s economy When it comes to finding cost-effective ways to produce large amounts of biofuel, a number of efforts are underway in Puerto Rico that involve public and private organizations alike. This includes combined efforts among the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, Sustainable AgroBiotech LLC of Puerto Rico (SABI), and INDUNIV Research Consortium, whose representatives and specialists have formed partnerships to develop new technologies to reduce dependence on fossil fuel. In addition to identifying and developing highbiomass crops, with companies such as SABI establishing renewable-energy partnerships with local farmers and helping them re-establish sugarcane farming, local scientists are also looking at developing microorganisms that can effectively ferment the monosaccharides present in the feedstock created from ligonocellulosic biomass. This, in turn, would be a significant contributor to the cost and ease of manufacturing of bioethanol. “The availability of effective means to process biomass will increase our ability to exploit a greater percentage of available types of lignocellulosic biomass and effectiveness of microbes in fermenting the feedstock produced from such biomass,” said Dr. Govind Nadathur, of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico’s Magueyes Island research center. However, given that effective processing often requires enzymes that can work under harsh conditions, the tropics, with its dynamic biodiversity, may serve as the source of some viable alternatives. Harnessing the local strains of termites as ideal decomposers of biomass is underway in studies by researchers on Dr. Nadathur’s team. “[Termites] are a keystone species that form a base to the grazing food chain of tropical terrestrial ecosystems,” he said. “Termites posses their own nutritional mutualism with microorganisms, which allows them to overcome obstacles in the utilization of plant cellusosic material.” He also added that environmental genomics from prokaryotic symbionts in termite guts have yielded valuable libraries of complex carbohydrate-degrading enzymes. So far, a detailed study on the termites in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands has identified 21 different species. Shipworms–marine wood-boring mollusks that are well-known for their destructive action on wharfs and other wood exposed to the sea also have been identified as potential agents for their decomposing capabilities as well. “As early as the 1920s, it was shown these worms have the capacity to digest both cellulose and hemicellulose,” said Dr. Nadathur. “Our laboratory has identified areas in the southwest of Puerto Rico that can yield such mollusks and developed a technique for the targeted enrich-

and midsize farms produce a diverse portfolio of products,” said Dr. Arup Sen, CEO of both SABI and SCI. “We are doing this through a unique university-industry-community collaboration as we address the specific needs of the island by effectively utilizing Puerto Rico’s intellectual, agricultural and manufacturing resources.” He pointed out that while SABI and UPR are involved in the research efforts, INDUNIV provides facilitation to the group and strategic direction to address legislative and governmental issues, including the permitting process, funding, legislation, promotions and networking. As SABI develops new ways to harvest and process biomass, the company is also aggresment of these shipworms from these areas.” By strategically placing pine grids in a mangrove area in the southwestern region of the island, the researchers have been able to isolate various species to identify the best candidates for enzyme production for a given biomass. Given Puerto Rico’s warm waters, SABI, which is an affiliate of Sustainable Cellulosics Inc. (SCI) of Florida, has joined efforts with Dr. Nadathur’s group, Iván Lugo from INDUNIV, and others to develop end-to-end technology solutions for producing bioethanol and other

Bio refinery team, Lajas experimental station value-added products. As an emerging agricultural-biotechnology company focused on maximizing the value of agricultural land and aquaculture by producing and selling biofuels and high-value biobased products, SABI’s major objectives include establishing renewableenergy partnerships with farmers to help them increase their operating margins, as well as implementing an integrated biorefinery business customized to meet the needs of Puerto Rico. “Our mission is to create jobs in agriculture and industrial manufacturing sectors and help small

sively collaborating with researchers at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez (UPRRUM) and providing partial funding to develop technology to make biodiesel fuel from algae. Dr. Jose Colucci, associate dean of the faculty of engineering at UPR-RUM is serving as the principal investigator, with Dr. Nadathur working as co-principal investigator. “[Puerto Rico] has very warm tropical resources and, in the ponds, you can find algae that produces oil for its own survival,” said Dr. Sen. “Not only is this oil fantastic for producing biodiesel fuel, but the pond version produces 10 times more oil than what you get from palm trees.” Focusing heavily on bringing algae technology to the forefront, members of the project team recently received a grant from the U.S. Air Force to study various kinds of algae to determine the kinds of oils they produce and which would be appropriate for producing various grades of diesel for trucks, farm equipment and jet fuel. “We already have started a program to look for algae for jet fuel for the Air Force, and are also building a library of different algae and how to grow them,” he said. While Dr. Sen believes it is technically impossible to totally replace fossil fuels, the work being done by his company can result in various blends that can cause the price at the pump to drop significantly.