Planning for the Future

From 17 to 18 February 2014 the DISCO kick-off meeting was held at Cumberland Lodge in Great Windsor Park, UK. The coordinator of DISCO, Professor Paul D. Fraser of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, hosted the event. After his short welcome address, Tomasz Calikowski, the scientific officer of the European Commission, pointed out the strengths and special features of DISCO within the FP7 Programme for Plant Biotechnology.

During the course of the meeting all project partners of the interdisciplinary and multinational consortium introduced their institutions and outlined their expertise. In addition, the work package leaders provided information about the scope of the scientific work still before them. Subsequently, the DISCO consortium discussed the next steps towards future planning.

DISCO is financed under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) of the EU with a total budget of 6.5 million euros. The four-year project started on November 1, 2013. It aims at fine-tuning bioactive compound extraction procedures, namely from the two important plant families Solanaceae and Iridaceae. To reach this goal, the partners of DISCO will use the latest enabling technologies to achieve industrial valorisation and commercialisation.

“DISCO is not only just about scientific excellence, but also about feasibility and translation as well as their products and their implementation,” says Paul D. Fraser. DISCO is supposed to deliver sustainable biosources applied in nutritional, medical and cosmetical products. Detrimental chemical refining can thus be eliminated, and the adverse environmental impact can be significantly reduced.