A holistic approach to training a new generation of scientists in marine biodiscovery

Project Information

HOTBIO

Grant agreement ID: 101072475

DOI

10.3030/101072475

EC signature date 22 June 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 30 June 2027

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 2 379 736,80

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE - NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HOTBIO (A holistic approach to training a new generation of scientists in marine biodiscovery)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Being a MSCA Doctoral Network, the main goal of the HotBio project is to train a new generation of experts within the field of natural products drug discovery. From a scientific point of view, the goal is to identify new bioactive natural products from marine microorganisms that can be developed into new medicines. HotBio includes a total of 13 PhD projects, covering the entire marine biodiscovery pipeline from field sampling of marine microorganisms, isolation and characterization of bioactive natural products, investigating their mode of action and to understand practical aspects of access and benefit sharing as well as business aspects of commercializing natural products. The doctoral candidates (DCs) receive dedicated scientific training on key parts of the pipeline in three specially designed courses. In addition, the DCs are also trained in transferrable skills including career planning, communication, legal and regulatory aspects, patenting and entrepreneurship. The students have research visits (secondments) to academic and industry partners to gain insights in different aspects of the natural products drug discovery and development process, and to develop awareness of the challenges and opportunities that exist in collaborations between academia and industry. The training and networking offered by Hotbio will make the DCs attractive employees in the future for academia, industry and governmental bodies.

For more information on HOTBIO project, please consult our website http://www.hotbio.eu/

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

All the DCs of HotBio were recruited within the first year of the project and they all fulfilled the mobility criteria set by the European Commission. They have completed the first short course on transferrable skills (SCT1 Starting your career as a young researcher – career planning and communication) and the first two short scientific courses (SSC1 The journey from hit to market, and SSC2 Dereplication and structure determination). A library of microbial isolates has been established, the bacteria have been fermented and extracted, and the extracts have been tested for biological activity. Bioactive compounds are currently being identified and potential new compounds that have promising properties will be targeted for isolation. Known bioactive compounds have been chemically synthesized to elucidate their mode of action, and data from natural products are used to train models for predicting bioactivity as well assessing drug-like properties.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The HotBio project are promoting the development of computer-based tools for predicting properties of natural products that are relevant for drug development. Such tools can predict potential bioactivity of a compound (i.e. what kinds of biological targets the natural products can interact with) and how the compounds will be treated by the human body if they are taken as drugs (i.e. administration, distribution, metabolism and excretion, ADME). The existing models are to a large degree trained on synthetic compounds, and by including natural products to the training data, these tools can be a valuable contribution to the process of developing new medicines from diverse natural products.

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