Mission
The mission of our company is to seize the business possibilities which are opening in the critical area of the conversion of greenhouse gases and other environmentally destructive emissions, which will also contribute to civilisation development and enhancing the quality of life.
To pursue our mission, we plan to develop, produce and sell novel technologies and products to convert direct and indirect greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia. We perceive it as a constant process in which manufacturing and distribution of our products is accompanied by research and development.
Functioning at the intersection of science and business requires not only vast knowledge and thorough education, but also a set of management skills and other competences required to successfully lead an enterprise. To address those requirements, our managing team combines a rich academic research background with decades of successful experience in business.
Background
The technologies that we intend to develop utilize microorganisms for enzymatic conversion of ammonia, a gas with a number of undesired properties. This malodorous gas, a product of putrefaction of organic matter, has toxic effect on human and animal organisms and has a negative environmental impact. However, contrary to humans, numerous bacteria and archaea are able to metabolize ammonia and by-products; a reasonably planned process can turn ammonia into nitrogen, a completely harmless gas which constitutes 78% of Earth’s atmosphere. In general, the process involves three steps:
- Oxidation of ammonia. Members of Nitrosomonas, Nitrosospira, Nitrosococcus genera are particularly efficient ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. The main product of this step is nitrite (NO2-).
- Oxidation of nitrites. This is efficiently carried out by members of Nitrobacter, Nicrospira, Nitrococcus and Nitrospina genera. The main product of this step is nitrate (NO3-).
- Reduction of nitrites. After ammonia has been fully oxidized, other microorganisms reduce nitrites, releasing nitrogen into the atmosphere. This step can be attributed to various denitrifying bacteria that belong to genera such as Thiobacillus, Micrococcus, Serratia, Pseudomonas, Achromobacter, Bacillus, Paracoccus and others.
This process is known as simultaneous nitrification-denitrification and is primarily used in municipal wastewater treatment process in order to convert ammonia and ammonium ion in a single bioreactor.
Team
Marcin Hoffmann
Professor of chemical sciences at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. He also achieved MSc in Biotechnology at the AMU Faculty of Biology, completed an MBA degree, organized jointly by Poznań Academy of Economics and Georgia State University in Atlanta in 2000 and postgraduate studies in computer science at the AMU Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science in 2004. Hoffmann has been widely cooperating with high-tech enterprises, implementing the idea of knowledge-based economy, for almost twenty years. In 2002-2003, he worked as McKinsey & Company consultant, managing telecommunications and energy carriers; in 2004, he became the Director for Investments & Development at BioInfoBank Institute.
Co-founder of BIB Seed Capital - a seed capital fund focused on supporting Polish scientific and engineering thought in such fields as bioinformatics, molecular biology, chemistry and computer science, alongside with facilitating its transfer to small and medium-sized enterprises. Some of the startups it had funded became global players, such as:
- Medicalgorithmics S.A. – a Polish high-tech company, an expert in and a supplier of systemic and algorithmic solutions in cardiac diagnosis; the company is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
- Proteon Pharmaceuticals S.A. – a Polish pharmaceutical company, which carries out research of bacteriophages and uses them as a basis for developing novel formulations - successful substitutes for antibiotics.
Leszek Rychlewski
Scientist and entrepreneur, Doctor of Medicine. He is the founder CEO of BioInfoBank Institute and one of the pioneers of Polish bioinformatics. Since 2002 BioInfoBank engaged in several R&D projects, which were funded through Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development to the tune of a few million EUR and resulted in several dozens of articles in prestigious scientific journals. The main achievements of Dr Rychlewski and BioInfoBank in the field of bioinformatics include setting up and maintenance of popular bioinformatics web services for the prediction of protein structure and function. As a part of its commitment for popularization of science, the Institute maintained a social network for scientists (BioInfoBank Library) between 2006 and 2009, which was later extended to include e-learning components. Starting from 2012, the centre of gravity for BioInfoBank's activity gradually shifted towards IT and applied research, especially blockchain technology.
Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) using 55nm and 28nm technology, dedicated for generating cryptocurrencies based on SHA-256 hash function (such as bitcoin), were designed within the Institute. This technology was quickly adopted by other companies so that the total production volume reached several tens of millions of such circuits, which were responsible for generating ca. 50% of bitcoin network hashrate computing power in 2013.
Mateusz Nowicki
Graduated maxima cum laude with a degree in chemistry from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, where he currently continues his academic career as a doctoral candidate. He has been awarded a scholarship by the Minister of Science and Higher Education of Poland for outstanding scientific achievements. His scientific interests involve the application of computational methods based on quantum chemistry, especially density functional theory (DFT), in studying research problems in various branches of chemistry, such as drug chemistry, organometallic chemistry, organophosphorus chemistry, and others.
Contact
BioInfo Corporation
BioInfo Corporation
First Floor Millennium House, Victoria Road
IM2 4RW Douglas
Isle of Man
e-mail: info@bioinfo.im