Petri-Jaan Lahtvee

DigiBio project focuses on digitalisation, bioeconomy, and sustainability, scientific domains which constitute a high priority in national, regional, and EU strategies and policies. As the second large European Centre within this area, the Estonian Centre for Bioesustainability (ECB) will place Estonia in a very competitive position in European R&I. With DTU assistance, ECB will establish a major research, technology development, and innovation platform for the generation of cutting-edge bioengineering solutions focused on sustainable bio-production through biology digitalisation. This platform will accelerate lab-to-market translation of bioengineering solutions, diversifying Estonian national industry. DigiBio’s overarching objective is to establish a state-of-the-art CoE for digitalisation of biology in Estonia, through upgrading the ECB.

Wood is Estonia's most important bio-based raw material, the skilful processing of which creates high added value, carbon binding products. Today, Estonian universities do not have a unified action plan and infrastructure for coordinated research and development (R&D) and for offering industrial solutions throughout the entire value chain. Therefore, the infrastructure is created for linking 14 structural units of 8 institutes of 3 universities. This synergy enables to carry out interdisciplinary, high quality R&D activities of wood valorisation. The infrastructure creates new opportunities for training young researchers and provides a strong base for international cooperation. An integrated contact point will be created for effective marketing of services of the infrastructure. R&D of the infrastructure covers mechanical, chemical, biochemical and thermochemical valorisation of primary and secondary wood and can take the Estonian wood science and industry to a new development level.

The transition towards a clean economy requires novel processes for chemical, material, and liquid fuel production that use sustainable substrates, have improved life cycle, and hence a reduced carbon footprint. Cell factories provide the ultimate platform for this purpose to drive the world economy and mitigate risks emanating from climate change. An exponential increase in process productivity by rapid technological developments in the fields of additive manufacturing and synthetic biology has the potential to influence nearly every industry because of adaptability and continual cost reduction. In this project, we offer interdisciplinary research that combines the advances in additive manufacturing of living materials with synthetic biology of non-conventional yeasts to manufacture a novel flow chemistry platform for creating biorefineries that can convert sustainable, locally available substrates into value-added oleochemicals with an aim to meet sustainability goals of society.