The first year of the DigiBio project has passed and we can safely call it a success. It has been a creative, interesting, and hard-working year full of new ideas, surprises, and great collaborations. Our project partners from Denmark (Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Biosustainability) and TalTech are increasingly engaging with this challenging team effort.
This year can be considered a foundational stage, while the next will be a stage of accelerated influx of scientific data and synthesis of knowledge facilitated by our fully automated digital Biofoundry. We have renovated the labs and offices for the Biofoundry and Digi units in Chemicum, the building next to our current institute. This will become our temporary space until the new laboratory and study building, Logicum, is built and move-in ready by 2029.
We are currently procuring the Biofoundry equipment and designing the workflow details. It is a highly complex effort, like building and optimizing a small high-tech factory. We have hired the Director of the Biofoundry, Dr Vallo Varik from EMBL, Heidelberg, and the Leader of the Sustainable Innovation Office, Dr Rainis Venta. The staff of the Biofoundry and Digi units have almost been fully recruited.
To gain full autonomy – a central requirement of the Teaming programme – we have established the brand-new Institute of Bioengineering as an upgrade to the Centre of Synthetic Biology, which was founded in 2016. We began this year with four research groups and will have six at the beginning of 2025. The goal of the Institute is to grow to 12-14 research groups by the time we move to the new building in 2029.
Project acquisition and financial sustainability are two of the main goals of the Teaming projects since the initial investment of 30 million euros is only seed money. We have made terrific progress towards these goals during the first year of the project (see the Scheme).
The year opened with wonderful news. Professor Kaspar Valgepea won the most prestigious of all research grants: an award from the European Research Council (ERC CoG ERC, 2.5 million euros for the synthetic biology of gas fermenting bacteria to improve carbon capture and sustainable chemical production). We are also excited about the TreeBioTEC ERA Chair, a 2.5 mEUR project to develop the bioengineering of birch trees and recruit a world-famous expert in tree bioengineering from Finland.
In addition, we received three applied science projects (totalling 3.5 million euros) that are very well suited for implementation within Biofoundry workflows. On top of two personal research grants, basic science and teaching funds, and a few smaller EU and other international projects, we raised ca 13 million euros in additional funds during the first year to ensure the sustainability of DigiBio and the Institute of Bioengineering. By the start of the next year, we will have six research groups involving three ERC grant holders or ERC alumni. We intend to keep the ERC success rate – the main excellence criteria of scientific institutions in Europe – at 50%, matching the best research centres in Europe and presenting a leading example for other institutes in Estonia.
Furthermore, as a result of the Erasmus Mundus collaboration with esteemed universities such as Heidelberg, Groningen, and Uppsala, we will establish a brand-new master’s program. This initiative will attract talented individuals who can contribute significantly to DigiBio. Professor Ilona Faustova leads this effort with great enthusiasm and dedication as coordinator of the Estonian team.
Finally, the new institute has been featured on three individual infrastructure roadmaps, which will yield more equipment funds in the future (molecular and cell biology, wood valorisation, plant biology).
The DigiBio project has garnered substantial attention, positioning us as a beacon of hope for local science. Our selection by the Estonian Science Agency to represent the country in Japan at the inaugural event of the forthcoming Estonian-Japanese science collaboration programme best illustrates our recent visibility. Fun, important, and rewarding teamwork characterise this past year. Thank you to our partners at the European Commission who have guided us so thoughtfully through the first steps on this long journey. Special thanks go to our partners in Denmark and Tallinn and the wonderful people on the DigiBio team – Ilona Faustova, Anneli Schön, Jochen Förster, Lars Nielsen, Birte Kastrup Rasmussen, Ervin Valk, Vallo Varik, Hannes Kollist, Andres Merits, Eva Zusinaite, Rainis Venta, Kaspar Valgepea, Kaisa Orgusaar, Eve-Ly Oajngu, Tiit Lukk, Petri-Jaan Lahtvee, and many others.