Upcoming Events

On 24 January 2019, Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI), A*STAR and ESCO Aster Pte Ltd, a contract development and manufacturing organisation of Esco Group, had announced the official opening of the BTI–ESCO ASTER Centre of Excellence in Bioprocessing in Biopolis, Singapore.

To commemorate the partnership between the two parties, a signing ceremony was held during the 11th Asian Federation of Biotechnology Regional Symposium 2019.

For BTI, being a Centre of Excellence marks a significant milestone to further advance the development of safe and effective cell and gene therapies. This collaboration will allow ESCO Aster to leverage on BTI’s expertise in bioprocessing science and engineering to develop innovative biomanufacturing solutions that will meet the demands of high-value cell and gene therapy space.

The AFOB Regional Symposium (ARS) is an annual event of the Asian Federation of Biotechnology (AFOB). The 11th ARS 2019 will be organized by the Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI), A*STAR and the Singapore Society for Microbiology and Biotechnology (SSMB), Singapore in coordination with AFOB, and will be held in Biopolis, Singapore from January 23rd to 25th, 2019. The theme for ARS 2019 is “Biotechnology for the Asian Century” and focus is how Asia can drive biotechnological advancements in the 21st Century.

This symposium aims to bring together scientists from Asia who are actively working in emerging platform technologies and their biotechnology applications, in order to share and discuss state-of-the-art developments and their industrial applications. Additionally, the workshop will seek to identify the key opportunities and challenges in this field and strategies to effectively address them. The workshop is chaired by Prof Kong Peng Lam (Bioprocessing Technology Institute, A*STAR, Singapore).

Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI), A*STAR, Singapore and Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Republic of Korea are jointly organizing the BTI-SKKU workshop on Healthcare and Biotechnology to lay a platform for fostering collaborations between BTI and SKKU in the areas of Biomedical Technology and Industrial Biotechnology, and the associated platform technologies.

This workshop aims to bring together scientists from both Singapore and Korea who are actively working in emerging platform technologies and their biomedical/biotechnology applications, in order to share and discuss state-of-the-art developments and their industrial applications. Additionally, the workshop will seek to identify the key opportunities and challenges in this field and strategies to effectively address them. The workshop is chaired by Prof Kong Peng Lam (Bioprocessing Technology Institute, A*STAR, Singapore).

The one-north Festival was jointly organized by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) to celebrate research, innovation, creativity and enterprise. Held at Biopolis this year, the Festival is supported by Science Centre Singapore and Mediacorp and many partners from within and beyond one-north. The Festival featured masterclasses, interactive demos, workshops, talks, tours and open houses where members of the public can sign up for tours or talks that they were interested in.

BTI is proud to be a part of the one-north Festival by showcasing its research activities at an exhibition booth. The BTI booth ambassadors, Jialing and Kim Leng, presented a jigsaw puzzle to describe a human pluripotent stem cell’s ability to differentiate into many different cell types such as heart cells, red blood cells or even bone cells. The members of the public who visited the booth were introduced to stem cells, how these differentiated stem cells could potentially be used in future treatments of various diseases such as Parkinson’s and how extensive research that were done on stem cells has helped to shape the future of regenerative medicine. Overall, the one-north Festival was exciting and it featured many technological and scientific advances created by the various institutes and partners of A*STAR. The one-north Festival was a good platform to showcase the various research and advancements done in A*STAR and to create awareness to the public.

Bioprocessing Technology Institute and Waters Corporation organized the BTI-Waters Technology Day "Innovations Applied in Omics & Translational Research" on 24 Jul 2017. The speakers were industry experts that shed light on the latest innovative technologies in Separations and Mass Spectrometry for applications in omics and translational research.

Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) was awarded the Center of Innovation Award by Waters Corporation on 27 February 2017. BTI is one of the research institutes in A*STAR with expertise in glycobiolgics research. By being part of the Centers of Innovation Program, BTI can tap on Waters’ analytical technologies and expertise to further advance the development of glyco-related biopharmaceuticals for the industry.

The collaboration will help BTI researchers to identify novel cancer markers and new glycosylation pathways which will lead to new therapeutic strategies. In conjunction with the Center of Innovation award, BTI hosted a Symposium on “The Next Frontier of Glycobiologics”. It was held at Exploration Theatrette, Matrix Building in Biopolis.

The Symposium was a platform that brought together leading scientists from the international glycosciences community to discuss developments within glycobiology and its application to biopharmaceutical research and development.

Some notable speakers invited were Professor Raymond Dwek (Glycobiology Institute, University of Oxford), Professor Nico Callewaert (VIB Medical Biotechnology Center, University of Ghent) and Professor Pauline Rudd (National Institute of Bioprocessing Research and Training, Ireland and Bioprocessing Technology Institute, A*STAR).

“Mammalian Systems Biotechnology” is an emerging paradigm employing integrative multi-omics data and model-driven approaches to study and engineer mammalian cells for the efficient production of high-value drugs such as recombinant proteins. This workshop will bring together globally eminent experts actively working in the Mammalian Systems Biotechnology field, in order to share and discuss state-of-the-art developments and their industrial applications. Additionally, the workshop will seek to identify the key opportunities and challenges in this field and strategies to effectively address them. The workshop is chaired by Dong-Yup Lee (National University of Singapore/Bioprocessing Technology Institute, A STAR, Singapore) and Steve Gorfien (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA), and sponsored by the Office of the Chief Scientific Officer at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Bioprocesssing Technology Institute, A*STAR (BTI), Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR (IMCB) and NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI) organised a Joint Workshop on Advancing Biopharmaceuticals R&D and Manufacturing through Synthetic Biology” on 17 May 2016. The BTI-IMCB-SynCTI Workshop brought together leading scientists from academia, and industry to discuss and identify critical issues and challenges related to synthetic biology approaches for biopharmaceuticals R&D and advanced manufacturing. This collaboration was a synergistic partnership between the two pioneer BMS research institutes of A*STAR with NUS SynCTI to innovate and advance cell factory-manufacturing and the development of biopharmaceuticals for the industry.