The Libramont Agriculture Fair 2018 - LIST and Biotechnologies

From July 27 to 30, 2018, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) participated in the 84th Libramont Fair in Belgium. The theme of the year was, "Who will feed our cities of tomorrow?".

Together with their partners PM-International  and Agroptimize, LIST ran a booth presenting their innovative projects within environmental research, with a focus on biotechnologies. Notably, visitors were able to find out how high-value molecules are produced from bacteria and plants. The LIST/PM-International booth was run by two demonstrators, giving visitors the chance to learn about the "Plant for products" project, and to get interested in bacterial culture. 

The "Plant for products" project was developed in collaboration with PM-International and deals with the use of plants on the cellular level. The project is about understanding how to use plants to create consumption tools. A cell is composed of thousands of molecules (water, lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids, etc.). A number of these molecules have particularly interesting properties for the development of dietary supplements or cosmetic products. 

Research consists of using complex processes to identify a selection of molecules and to develop new raw materials from them. LIST's mission is therefore the extraction and characterization of molecules. In addition to learning about the research and characterization process using one particular plant as an example, grapes, visitors also had the opportunity to learn about and try the line of dietary supplements presented by PM-International. 

> Find out more information about the LIST/PM-International partnership in the article, "Inauguration of joint labs between PM-International and LIST", published on 28/06/2017.

Visitors got to see how LIST supports their partners in the research of new biotechnological products based on microorganisms. Thanks to the demonstration, visitors were able to understand how researchers cultivate probiotics on a large-scale, first taking a culture in the laboratory in small containers and changing its chemical composition, temperature, pH, and so on. The goal of this process is to find optimal growth conditions to then be able to continue the culture on a larger scale, in bioreactors upwards in size of 3 to 5 L.

The Agriculture, Forestry, and Agribusiness Fair is a giant outdoor exhibition. Each year, it welcomes nearly 200,000 visitors and 1,500 exhibitors and brands, on a site covering 300,000 m². For the four days of this annual event, the LIST booth was always full. Save the date in 2019 for next year's fair!

> Find out more information about LIST's activities in environmental and industrial biotechnlogies.

> For any questions, please email Dr. Jean-François Hausman.