Webinar preview: Kerry talks biotech and enzyme breakthroughs transforming food, health, and sustainability

With the food industry facing pressure from consumers and regulations to opt for more sustainable business production and manufacturing, Kerry experts unveil how biotechnology is stepping into the spotlight. The nutrition ingredients and science provider says the climate crisis and the need for cleaner production have enabled smarter solutions to proliferate.

Two upcoming webinars hosted by Kerry will expose how advances in molecular biology, biodiversity screening, and AI-driven enzyme discovery are unlocking new tools for sustainable food innovation.

Registrations to watch the webinar are open. One will take place on July 29 at 9:00 CEST, and the other will take place on the same day at 17:00 CEST.

Advancements in molecular biology 

To give a sneak peek into the webinar, Nutrition Insight asks one of the presenters about what is driving the surge in interest in enzymes and biotechnology and what makes this notable compared to other hypes.

“There are two main factors: the development in molecular biology has advanced to a point where modifications of enzymes and strains are no longer a technical problem. This is associated with the fact that nature does not have a suitable enzyme ready to be used for every industrial application,” says Sebastian Bartsch, Ph.D., head of Bioinformatics at Kerry Biotechnology Center. 

“We now have the tools to adjust the properties of enzymes. Secondly, the acceptance of using engineered enzymes and production hosts increased as there are many examples of optimized enzymes and processes that would not be possible without the use of modern molecular biology tools.”

New microbial tools 

The webinar will examine new techniques that are transforming the way foods are produced, processed, and optimized, ranging from customizing enzymes for particular industrial requirements to scaling production through microbial fermentation.

Sebastian Bartsch, Ph.D., head of Bioinformatics at Kerry Biotechnology Center.Biodiversity screening and new microbial tools are helping identify enzyme functions that were previously inaccessible. “Through new technologies like next-generation sequencing, the available data on genomic sequences and naturally occurring enzymes is exploding,” notes Bartsch. 

“Computational tools like AI-based annotation of enzyme sequence make this enormous amount of data accessible to search for specific enzymes, enzymes with specific properties, or even organisms with specific properties.” 

“This is supported by developments in all areas of molecular biology, like affordable DNA synthesis and advanced high-throughput screening technologies.”

Kerry says the webinar will offer in-depth insights into next-generation sustainability solutions in science that also generate commercial impact through biotechnology. 

At the end of the session and panel discussion, attendees can send questions to the presenters during the live Q&A to learn about what is next in this space.

Niall Higgins, Ph.D., Global Product director at Kerry, and Andreas Vogel, Ph.D., VP of R&D at Kerry Biotechnology Center, are part of the panel with Bartsch.