Our Story

Biopetrolia was founded from the synergy between science, engineering and entrepreneurship as a way to provide solutions to some of today’s sustainability problems. The company originated from Jens Nielsen’s Systems and Synthetic Biology group at Chalmers University of Technology, known for its in-depth knowledge and world expertise in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering of yeast cell factories.

Today, our mission is to use bioengineered yeast cells for producing useful, high-value fatty acid-derived products. These products are rare in nature, which makes their production expensive and/or unsustainable . These products include bioactive ingredients in nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals, functional foods, cosmetics, flavours and fragrances.

In the future, we envision using our platform to also tackle sustainability challenges across different low-value/high-volume markets. This includes renewable fuels, chemical intermediates and bioplastics.

Management Team

Anastasia has educational background in Biochemistry and Biotechnology and has received a PhD in Biology. Prior to founding Biopetrolia, Anastasia has worked as a Project Leader for several years and has overseen many projects aimed at producing specialty chemicals, bulk chemicals and biofuels in yeast, as well as creation of synthetic biology tools. Anastasia’s scientific work has resulted in a number of publications and patent applications. Anastasia has served on the board of Biopetrolia from 2014-2016 and has been the CEO of Biopetrolia since 2016.

Anastasia Krivoruchko, PhD

CEO & Co-founder

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Florian holds a PhD degree in Biotechnology with a focus on holistic bioprocess optimization. He coordinated projects ranging from upstream strain development to bioprocess optimization and downstream processing. These resulted in several publications and patent applications. For his studies, he was awarded the Biotechnica Award and the Bluesens© Competition Award. Florian sees a great potential in combining science, engineering and entrepreneurship towards biotechnology innovations.

Florian David, PhD

CSO & Co-founder

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Jens heads a large research group at Chalmers University of Technology, and has a very strong international profile in the field of metabolic engineering and systems biology. He has co-authored more than 600 research papers in international peer-reviewed journals, which have been cited more than 30,000 times. He is the inventor of more than 35 issued patents and patent applications, and has co-founded multiple companies. Jens has also served as a scientific advisor to a number of large biotech companies.

Jens Nielsen, Professor

Chairman of the Board

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Jan has more than 30 years of international management experience in the Specialty Chemicals industry. He is a former Director of AkzoNobel and President of Eka Chemicals, where he has been responsible for building and directing the business. In addition to operational positions, Jan has been an active Chairman and board member of several medium sized companies, research and branch organizations with a focus on the Process industry.

Jan Svärd

Board of Directors

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Henrik has through more than 30 years been involved in the establishment and growth of the international biotech and life science industry in Denmark. Henrik has worked in Chr. Hansen, Novozymes, Novo Nordisk, and Nordisk Gentofte, from where he has substantial business, strategy and scientific experience. He has been responsible for development of several commercialized products both within the biopharmaceutical- and the industrial biotechnology area, and he has led the creation of successful business operations with high and very profitable growth rates.

Henrik Dalbøge

Board of Directors

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Research & Development Team

Verena Siewers

Verena Siewers, PhD

Project Leader

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Stefan Tippmann

Stefan Tippmann, PhD

Research Scientist

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Zongjie Dai

Zongjie Dai, PhD

Research Scientist

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