On 13th October, the e-ASIA Kick-off workshop on Integrated Biorefinery of Sugarcane Trash led by Prof. Takashi Watanabe (Director of Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere: RISH) was organized at Windsor Suites Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand. Representatives from the four participating countries gathered together from Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and Lao PDR.
To open the workshop, Mr. Yoshihide Kobayashi (Special Program Coordinator for e-ASIA joint research program secretariat) introduced the program scheme. Followed by the introduction, Mr. Chittaphong Ackhavong (Deputy Director General of Department of Planning and Cooperation, Ministry of Science and Technology of Lao PDR) made an opening address to highlight the significance of the joint research collaboration under this e-ASIA program. Prof. Watanabe continued to present the project outline of integrated biorefinery of sugarcane trash, and representatives of 5 working groups briefly introduced the joint research plan and activities respectively.
The final target of this project is to drive the transformation of the sugarcane burning to the production of value-added chemicals, fuels and energy through international research collaboration on “pretreatment and fractionation of sugarcane trash”, “design and construction of CBP yeast cell factory”, “adaptive evolution of xylitol production strain / lactic acid production”, and “ isolation of lignin from sugarcane trash and its synthesis for producing biosurfactant”. Dr. Makie Kokubun of JST Program Director for SICORP expressed his expectations that the Integrated Biorefinery of Sugarcane Trash Project would be fruitful. Finally, Dr. Verawat Champreda (Sub-project Leader at BIOTEC, NASTDA) made a closing remark.
This project is initially conceived by the successful collaboration of the JASTIP-Net for collaborative research, under “Japan-ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Platform: Promotion of Sustainable Development Research”. Kyoto University ASEAN Center has been supporting those Japan-ASEAN initiatives for multilateral research projects to nurture next generation of scientists.
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