Biotechnology in Thuringia

摘要

The principal body for academic and economic development, as well as the promotion of biotechnology in the free state of Thuringia is the BioRegio Jena organisation situated in the university town of Jena. The organisation was founded in 1996 and oneof its first tasks was to set up the Bio-Instruments Jena Concept that was aimed at the development of the biotechnological potential of Thuringia. This already boasted several universities and scientific institutes of high reputation, together with manycompanies with expertise in electronics, precision engineering, biotechnology, medicine and optics. The Biolnstruments Jena concept is all-embracing but can be summarised as the idea of developing new instruments for the study of biological structures together with the use of biological structures as scientific instruments. The concept was so attractive that it won one of the top prizes in the 1996 German National "BioRegio" competition which resulted in the granting by the federal government of 16 millions EUR to the region for the promotion of biotechnology. A direct result of this has been that so far more than 50 biotechnology firms have been founded in the area and the BioRegio Jena association now has 56 members.