BIOPROSP International Conference on Marine Bioprospecting is a biennial conference on bioprospecting from cold marine environment that is held in the university town of Tromsø in Northern Norway. Conference has been organized since 2002 and it has already established itself as one of Europe's top conferences in the field of marine bioprospecting. Oceans cover 71% of the planet's surface and offer human necessities such as food and energy. More than 90% of the marine biodiversity remains unexplored. This offers a huge potential for applications in a wide range of products such as drugs, ingredients, supplements, bioprocessing, energy, green chemicals and biomaterials.
Contents
The economical outcome of R&D in marine biotechnology is expected to generate a 10% annual growth, as assessed by Blue Growth H2020. BIOPROSP Conference aims at bringing together scientists and industry representatives and addressing issues of how to translate basic research into applied research on possible industrial applications.
Organizers and Partners
The BIOPROSP conference is organized by MABIT and has been supported throughout the years by Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, RDA Tromsø, Innovation Norway, The Research Council of Norway, University of Tromsø, NORUT, Norinnova Technology Transfer, SINTEF, Nofima, MabCent-SFI, Arena BioTech North, uniResearch, University of Oslo, University of Bergen, DNB, Tekna, ArcticZymes, and many other important industry actors from the region. The conference program features some of the best-recognized scientists working in the marine bioprospecting field and attracts around 250 participants from all over the world. Participants include stakeholders in biotech (life science) and pharmaceutical industry, scientists, public support system, decision-makers and others interested in marine bioprospecting and biotechnology.
Pre-Conference
The conference is preceded by a pre-conference workshop consisting of three or four parallel sessions held in small groups with more direct and face-to-face interactions and discussions. As a part of the conference, a PhD course in bioprospecting is offered by UiT-The Arctic University of Tromsø. The course aims to teach the essential themes related to bioprospecting. The first part of the course is given as weekly online lectures during months preceding the conference. One day before conference, PhD course participants meet for an intensive course day. Students are also obliged to take part in a Pre-conference Workshop mentioned above. After the conference the students have to write a home assignment (exam).
Main Conference
BIOPROSP conference itself lasts three days and consists of four program sessions devoted to topics that are chosen by Programme Committee. Each session includes one keynote and two presentations by invited speakers.
BIOPROSP conference also hosts the "Poster Session". Posters are displayed from the opening of the conference. Some posters will be selected for short oral presentations during the official Poster Session. In addition to that posters will be evaluated for a "Poster Prize". Posters will be evaluated according to lay-out, relevance of issue and communication skills.
BIOPROSP is designed to serve as a networking arena and thus, there is an accompanying social activities program with dog sledging, Northern Lights watching and music entertainment. All taking place in the incredible surroundings of Northern Norway, during the Northern Lights peak visibility season.
Past conferences
Upcoming conference
BIOPROSP_17, 8–10 March 2017, Tromsø, Norway