About the session

Sustainability is a topic of increasing focus, also in science, where research generates significant amounts of waste and consumes a lot of energy. Many of us are making changes in our personal lives to reduce our ecological footprint, and there is a growing movement to also do this in the lab.

To contribute to these efforts and move toward a more eco-friendly approach in science, we will introduce the QIAwave product line. While maintaining the same performance, these kits use more environmentally friendly packaging than our standard kits, including removal of paper instructions and single-use spin column packaging. Buffers are offered as concentrates, and collection tubes are replaced with waste tubes made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic. This reduction in packaging is only a first step; further developments will focus on the additional reduction of plastic components.

In this session, we will also share some small routines in the lab that can already have a positive impact, as well as excellent initiatives that encourage collaboration and idea-sharing.

Speakers

Eva Haenssler
Eva Haenssler is an Associate Director responsible for sample technology product development, including solutions for manual and automated extraction from a wide range of sample materials. Since joining the QIAGEN R&D team in Hilden in 2012, her work has focused on sample preparation for microbiome and liquid biopsy applications. Before joining QIAGEN, Eva worked on host-pathogen interactions as a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA, USA. She holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.
David Willemsen
David Willemsen is a Scientist for product development at QIAGEN. He joined the QIAGEN Hilden R&D team in 2022, and his work focuses on developing environmentally friendly solutions for nucleic acid extraction. Before joining QIAGEN, David worked on adaptive trait evolution and population genetics as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Cologne, Germany.