During the reporting period, OXIPRO achieved significant progress across scientific, technological, and societal dimensions. Engagement with over 350 stakeholders—more than triple the project’s original target—was maintained through more than ten co-creation activities, including roundtables, world cafés, panel discussions, ‘Meet-a-Scientist’ events, webinars, interviews, and bilateral meetings. These interactions have been instrumental in shaping the project’s innovation, policy, and societal relevance.
OXIPRO made a notable contribution to policy development through its leadership in the “Enzyme Cluster,” a collaboration among four FNR-16 sister projects. This initiative resulted in joint policy meetings, workshops, capacity-building activities, and the publication of four policy briefs aligning enzyme technologies with EU strategies.
The project’s computational platform was publicly launched, integrating multiple modules for in silico enzyme mining and engineering into a user-friendly workflow manager, Horus. Over time, more than 250 enzyme candidates were explored for reaction and process compatibility. Recently, the platform was optimized and promoted for public use.
Two high-throughput enzyme screening platforms—based on microfluidics and cell-free expression—were finalized and validated, achieving capacities exceeding 500 oxidoreductases per week. These platforms enabled the discovery of several novel enzymes and enzyme properties, resulting in eight scientific publications and two filed patents.
All targeted enzymes for OXIPRO’s four priority sectors (cosmetics, detergents, textiles, and nutraceuticals) were successfully expressed in industry-compatible systems. During this period, enzymes were produced via microbial fermentation at medium scale (15–70 L), and kinetic models were developed and validated for scale-up. Ultimately, this enabled the transfer of enzymes to application testing.
Proof-of-application experiments were conducted in all four innovation cases, testing enzymes under real-life conditions. These experiments provided critical insights into feasibility, sustainability, and scalability, supporting future industrial implementation. While data is still being processed, these application experiments have already led to two scientific publications and the prototyping of greener products.
Altogether, OXIPRO identified over fifteen Key Exploitable Results (KERs), with detailed exploitation and dissemination pathways. A dedicated IPR task force monitored new intellectual property developments, resulting in two patents and expressed interest from industry partners.
In line with its communication and dissemination strategy, OXIPRO launched multiple media platforms, produced videos and outreach materials, and published 13 open-access scientific articles and one book chapter. The Enzyme Cluster collaboration further amplified dissemination through 13 joint newsletters, four co-authored scientific publications, and shared capacity-building efforts.
