Biotechnica 2009 attracts more participants

Biotechnica, Europe's leading biotechnology and life sciences trade fair, will be held October 6-8 in Hannover, Germany. 650 participants have been signed up, compared to 535 last year, and 30% more exhibition space has been booked.

The event will showcase potential uses of biotechnology in industry, health care, environmental protection and food production. Companies and institutions from 28 countries and five continents will be represented and, among the top scientists present, will be Kary Mullis, Nobel prize winner for chemistry and inventor of PCR (polymerase chain reaction).

The conference program will include contributions from over 500 international experts. Key topics will include biotech-IT and protein engineering, which facilitates the development of therapeutic antibodies to treat cancer or immunological diseases. Both the BIO-IT World Europe and the Protein Engineering Summit conferences will be staged in Europe for the first time by Cambridge Health Institute, a leading organizer of biomedical conferences in the USA. Other key topics will be bone regeneration, stem cell research, financing for R&D and the application of biotech to the automobile, chemical and energy industries.