FavaFerment
The EU aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, with zero net greenhouse gas emissions. This transition poses significant challenges for the food industry, particularly in reducing the carbon footprint of food products. The protein transition, focussing on plant-based dairy and meat alternatives, is central to this effort. However, consumer acceptance of these alternatives remains […]
Haplotagging
Food security and climate change are two of the greatest challenges facing humanity. With shrinking farmland and a growing population, we need Smart Breeding technologies: technologies that accelerate the creation of crop varieties that increase yield, resist disease, and tolerate heat and drought. Today, many bottlenecks exist to make Smart Breeding affordable only to the […]
Tulip Enzyme Solutions
Many chemical and pharma processes in the industry rely on inefficient or environmentally harmful methods. Biocatalysis offers a greener alternative, but natural enzymes and cofactors are expensive both to develop as well as to use in the processes. However, widespread adoption of biocatalysis is still limited by challenges related to toxicity, impurities and cost. To […]
CRISPR4ALL
Global food demand is growing rapidly, but farmers and plant breeders are struggling to keep up. Traditional methods to create improved crops that produce more food or resist diseases take a very long time, sometimes up to 10 years and longer for a single new variety. Advanced tools like CRISPR, which allow precise changes to […]
VITA
VITA aims to make cultivated meat accessible and truly sustainable. Cultivated meat is an ethical, sustainable alternative to traditional animal farming. Still, it relies on old-fashioned bioreactors (designed for microbial fermentation and not tissue cultivation), making the process inefficient and unsustainable. We’re developing a groundbreaking bioreactor tailored for tissue cultivation through the Biotech Booster program […]
Carapace Biopolymers
Agriculture is undergoing critical transitions to address global population growth, increasing food demands, and environmental challenges. Traditional farming relies heavily on non-renewable resources like synthetic fertilizers and plastics, leading to soil degradation and increased climate stress. Over 60% of Europe’s soils are in an unhealthy state, with declining biodiversity and productivity. Recent legislation has targeted […]
Reduce and use landfill methane
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and about 20% of the emissions caused by humans originatefrom waste, such as landfills. Landfills containing organic matter produce methane-rich landfill gas over a long period of time, up to a hundred years. This landfill gas can be captured and channeled into electricity and heat when the methane concentration […]
Glow-in-the-dark molecular diagnostics
Quantitative PCR (qPCR) is a reliable and sensitive method for detecting DNA and RNA, and is widely considered the gold standard. However, qPCR needs costly equipment, skilled technicians, and specialized labs, which means tests can take several hours. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that while qPCR is effective for detecting infectious diseases, it is neither quick […]
Soil plant bioticum
The profound intensification of agricultural practices resulted in decreased soil health. In soil, microorganisms are crucial in ecosystem processes and are linked to soil and plant health and crop productivity. They facilitate nutrient uptake from soil to plants, augmenting plant growth and resilience to environmental stressors. The effort is therefore focused on steering soil microbial […]
CoolBloom
Climate change, i.e. rising temperatures, demands that the crops that we grown become more heat tolerant. In the Netherlands and many other regions where Dutch breeding companies sell their seeds, more frequent and severe heatwaves disrupt crop fertility leading to significant losses in yield. Considering that plant breeding companies based in the Netherlands account for […]