Ágústa Guðmundsdóttir, professor at the Faculty of Food and Nutrition at the University of Iceland and board member of Matís, discusses the origins and growth of the biotechnology company Zymetech and its connection to basic research at the university in the second lecture of the lecture series Science in Human Languages. The lecture will be in the Celebration Hall of the University of Iceland on Tuesday 18 November. at 12:10.
The biotechnology company Zymetech is based on research by Ágústa and Jón Bragi Bjarnason, professor of biochemistry at the University of Iceland's School of Engineering and Natural Sciences. Zymetech is based on decades of research at the University of Iceland on digestive enzymes from cod and the utilization of the enzymes in medical and cosmetic products on the market.
The value of basic research in the innovation process and how deep knowledge of enzymes, microbiology, food science, biochemistry, cell biology and pharmacology will be used directly in practical biotechnology will be discussed. The innovation process of biotechnology companies is long and complicated. International markets for biotechnology products, such as medical products, are large, demanding and innovative. Therefore, the development of new medical products for such a market requires the constant development of ingenuity and increased knowledge. The cost of patenting, listing medical products, foreign consultants, marketing, licensing and more is high but necessary for international marketing.
Zymetech has had a good collaboration with the University of Iceland and Landspítali - University Hospital on obtaining research grants, educating graduate students and publishing scientific articles. The collaboration also offers jobs for young researchers and access to specialized facilities for basic and medical research. The importance of research funds for innovation and the continued development of ingenuity within companies in the international market will also be discussed.
Lunch refreshments will be served after the presentation.
About Ágústa Guðmundsdóttir
Ágústa Guðmundsdóttir holds a PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Biology from the Department of Microbiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, USA in 1988. She has been a visiting professor at the university since 1989 and has also conducted research at the University of California, San Francisco and New York University. Since 1993, Ágústa has been a professor of food chemistry at the Faculty of Food and Nutrition at the School of Health Sciences, but was an associate professor in the same field from 1989–1993. Ágústa's research has increasingly focused on the use of cod enzymes against microbial infections and the development of medical products based, among other things, on her research in collaboration with Zymetech. Ágústa has been the research director of Zymetech for years, but the research has been carried out in collaboration with the University of Iceland. She has written a number of scientific articles and book chapters on her research and colleagues and supervised a number of doctoral and master's students. In addition, she has taken an active part in management positions both within and outside the University of Iceland.
About the lecture series
Science in Human Language is a new series of lectures at the University of Iceland, initiated by the Center for Life Sciences and the University of Iceland's Institute of Biology. The aim is to shed light on how university researchers try to uncover the mysteries of nature and what significance scientific research has for people's daily lives, such as fighting diseases or the forces of nature or to increase the quality of life and address new challenges related to environmental change.
This article first appeared on website of the University of Iceland.