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EU funding (€3,452,423): directed EVOlution in DROPS Hor1 Oct 2018 EU Research and Innovation programme "Horizon"
Overview
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directed EVOlution in DROPS
Natural evolution is a powerful process that has given rise to the functionally diverse set of proteins present in all living systems. Repetitive rounds of mutation, selection and amplification have optimised nature’s catalysts, the enzymes, to perform an enormous range of different reactions. However, natural evolution has driven the optimisation of enzymes subjected to living functions of microorganisms, according to ill-defined and fluctuating external conditions and is not suitable for industrial processes since it lacks of control of selection pressure. In EVOdrops, we will use directed evolution to overcome these limitations. It is a synthetic, man-made approach of evolution, aiming at improving living systems based on predefined needs, controlling the external selection pressure. While natural evolution took billions of years to optimise macromolecules, directed evolution – to be efficient in an industrial process – requires both the generation of genetic diversity and ultra-high throughput screening capabilities to recover the variants of interest. We will develop and optimise these tools using the ground-breaking potential of droplet-based microfluidics for high-throughput experimentation and the fine control of gene library construction. EVOdrops, a European training network, will bring together the leading research scientists, laboratories and industries in Europe with outstanding expertise in protein engineering and microfluidics and 13 early stage researchers. We will offer an extensive multi- and interdisciplinary training to ensure that they can solve these urgent and unmet challenges in biotechnology and biomedicine. We will use a multidisciplinary approach combining soft matter, microfluidics and chemical biology to design solutions for the selection of new enzymes of industrial and therapeutic interest. In the future, our approaches can be generalised to challenges involving high-throughput miniaturised biochemical or cell-based assays.
Funded Companies:
| Company name | Funding amount |
| Basf SE | ? |
| Biomillenia | €274,802 |
| Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS | €527,544 |
| Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zuerich | €281,277 |
| Instytut Chemii Fizycznej Polskiej Akademii Nauk | €227,479 |
| Technische Universitaet Muenchen | €252,788 |
| The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge | €303,173 |
| UAB Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics | €223,947 |
| Universite Catholique de Louvain | €256,320 |
| Universite Paris Cite | €274,802 |
| University of Glasgow | €606,345 |
| Vilniaus Universitetas | €223,947 |
Source: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/813786
The filing refers to a past date, and does not necessarily reflect the current state. The current state is available on the following page: BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany.