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Content archived on 2024-06-18

Rational design of plant systems for sustainable generation of value-added industrial products

Objective

Plants sustainably produce low levels of secondary metabolites of high industrial value. However, they are often too complex to be economically manufactured by chemical synthesis. Advanced metabolic engineering and exploitation of plants as Green Factories has been prevented due to poorly understood metabolic pathways in plants and the regulation thereof. SmartCell brings together 14 leading European academic laboratories and four industrial partners in order to create a novel concept for rationally engineering plants towards improved economical production of high-value compounds for non-food industrial use. Although SmartCell focuses on terpenoids, the largest class of secondary metabolites, which exhibit extremely diverse biological and pharmaceutical activities, all knowledge, tools and resources developed in the project, are generic and broadly applicable to engineer any plant biosynthetic pathway. A systems biology approach using metabolomics and transcriptomics is taken to move beyond the state of the art. New multigene transfer technologies are developed. By screening and functionally categorizing genes at structural, regulatory and transport levels a comprehensive knowledge base of how secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways operate in plants is developed. The case study component i.e. manufacturing a valuable terpenoid in an optimized large-scale system gives SmartCell a unique opportunity to directly make transition from fundamental science to application. For long-term exploitation an integrated database, compound library, cell culture collection and a genebank available for academic and industrial communities will be established. SmartCell provides new opportunities for SMEs and established European biotech companies, and the technology can also be transferred to other e.g. fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. SmartCell will prove that plant-based resources can furnish the European society and industry far more than they presently do.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-KBBE-2007-2A
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

CP-IP - Large-scale integrating project

Coordinator

TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS VTT
EU contribution
€ 1 508 209,00
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Participants (18)

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