Project description
Developing the one-carbon feedstock
The one-carbon (C1) feedstock methanol is a promising alternative feedstock to reduce fossil fuel dependence. Abundant and inexpensive, it can be sustainably produced from waste, CO2 and renewable hydrogen. The EU-funded ADVANC1-METH project will engineer a highly efficient, synthetic methanol assimilation pathway into the well-known industrial host bacterium Escherichia coli. Modular optimisation will be performed for the bottlenecks to efficient enzymatic methanol conversion in the cell. The overall strain performance will be optimised through rational, systems-wide targeting of the metabolic network and fast-growing strains on methanol will be selected and studied using an innovative high-throughput genome editing approach.
Objective
Urgent global problems, including climate change and fossil-fuel dependence, force the EU to develop sustainable bio-basedchemical production platforms. However, current biotechnological feedstocks, such as plant-based sugars, suffer from serious limitations in terms of availability and sustainability. A very promising alternativeis the one-carbon (C1) feedstock methanol, which canbe produced in a sustainable manner from waste, or CO2 and renewable hydrogen. So far, the conversion of methanol to products is limited by the lack of suitable, efficientmicrobial cell factories. Hence, this project will engineer a highly efficient, synthetic methanol assimilation pathway into the well-known industrial host bacterium Escherichia coli. First, modular optimization will be performed for the bottleneck steps of enzymatic methanol conversion in the cell. Then, the overall strain performance will be optimized by rational, systems-wide targeting of the metabolic network and fast growing strains on methanol will be selected and studied. To achieve the objectives an innovative high-throughput genome editing approach will be employed. ADVANC1-METH is expected to yield a bacterial platform strain for efficient conversion of methanol to products, and industrially relevant IP and scientific knowledge will be effectively disseminated. The ADVANC1-METH project will aid the applicant to further extend his knowledge in the interdisciplinary fields of synthetic biology, bioinformatics, genetic and metabolic engineering, and complement his academic skills to fulfil the ambition to become an independent researcher. The implementation and training will be hosted at an institute with key expertise in bacterial and metabolic engineering. Within the ADVANC1-METH project videos and a board game will be developed to increase public engagement and knowledge on sustainable and methanol-based biotechnology, which are essential to realize a sustainable bio-based society.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
6708 PB Wageningen
Netherlands