Biennial Report 2011–2012

Director’s note
The Biennial report for 2011-2012 marks the first two years
of the integration of Institute to Vilnius University. This period
was complicated for several reasons. It was necessary to
adjust to the new administrative rules and to overcome new
bureaucratic challenges. In addition, this period coincided
with the global economic crisis, which resulted in up to 40%
reduction in budget of the Institute and reduced the competitive
grant funding opportunities in Lithuania.
Auspiciously, in this difficult period we implemented the EC
FP7 program project MOBILI directed to integration of the
Lithuanian Modern Biotechnology into the European Research
Area. Due to this project the scientists of the Institute had a lot
of opportunities to actively participate in scientific conferences,
invite famous lecturers to the Institute and let the internships
visiting the Western European academic institutions. Owing to
this project, seven experienced scientists, who had been previously
working abroad, joined the Institute. They have successfully
integrated into ongoing research topics of the Institute
and in parallel started there new projects in most promising research
fields. Thanks to this project the mobility of the research
staff of the Institute has increased tremendously and contacts
with foreign scientists have expanded.
The last two-year period was successful for participation in a
wide range of applications for tenders. Our scientists carried
out seven EC FP7 Programme projects, two NIH (USA) projects,
and a HHMI (USA) project. In particular, scientists have
been very active in the Research Council of Lithuania (LMT)
and Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA)
programmes. During this period of time our scientists started
implementing 6 Global Grants financed by the European
Structural Funds, 2 Swiss-LT projects funded by the Swiss
Funds, 18 research team projects funded by LMT, 6 projects
of National Programmes, one High-Technology Programme
project and two grants of the Programme of Industrial
Biotechnology. Both the National Integrated Programme
of Biotechnology & Biopharmacy and the Programme of
Industrial Biotechnology were initiated by the scientists of the
Institute. These programmes have provided opportunities to
purchase new equipment and materials, and help to integrate
research and industry.
Scientific activity in competitions helped to overcome a crisis
in 2009 and significantly improved the financial situation of
the Institute. Scientists’ activity, swiftness, high level internationally
recognized results and their implementation in practice
have influenced the next period funding, and our budget
for 2013-2015 years has increased by about 24%.
The good news is that this period was an active patenting of research
results and IP licensing. During the last two years the
Institute published 5 patents, 3 of which were licensed to our
neighbour Thermo Fisher Scientific.
In my opinion, the most important landmark in the history
of the Institute of Biotechnology is the creation of Lithuanian
modern biotechnology industry, which is competitive on the
world market. We take exceptional pride of our internationally
recognized companies UAB Fermentas (currently Thermo
Fisher Scientific), UAB Sicor Biotech (currently Teva), UAB
Biocentras, UAB Biok, and the new UAB Profarma (2007),
UAB Nomads (2010), UAB Baltymas (2011), UAB IMD
Technologies (2012).
I hope you enjoy reading this report on significant developments
and activities of the Vilnius University Institute of
Biotechnology in 2011-2012.
Prof. Kęstutis Sasnauskas
Vilnius University Institute of Biotechnology Biennial report for 2011–2012 3