Objective
Context: Globally, 50-70 million tons of lignin, a highly branched heteroaromatic polymer, are discharged per year as a waste material from the paper and pulp industry despite being touted as the most abundant renewable source of different value-added products on earth. Leaving 98% of lignin underutilized, industries degrade only 2% of lignin and that also comes with environmentally hazardous thermochemical processes.
Background: Recently, the discovery of heme-containing class II fungal peroxidases viz. lignin peroxidase (LiP), manganese peroxidase (MnP), versatile peroxidase (VP), dye-decolorizing peroxidase (DyP) garnered a lot of attention due to their biodegradable ligninolysis. However, the industrial application of peroxidase-based lignin degradation still seems to be a far-flung dream owing to low availability of peroxidases in sufficient amount, enzyme instability in industrial effluent, high enzyme cost and long process times.
Aims and objective: I hypothesize that a cocktail of engineered stress tolerant, active and stable peroxidases could lead to synergistic biodegradation of lignin. To achieve this, artificial intelligence (AI) tailored LiP, MnP, VP and DyP will be cloned and expressed as inclusion bodies (IBs) in E. coli using Prof. Spadiut’s expertise whereas mine will employ solubilization and refolding strategies to increase the overall yield of bioactive protein. An ideal stoichiometric combination of engineered peroxidases will be standardized to withstand the harsh conditions of industrial effluent, resulting in a sustainable and economic ligninolytic technology.
Concluding remarks: The project is inspired from nature, backed with AI and stemmed with the expertise of mine and Prof. Spadiut’s in producing recombinant bioactive protein from bacterial IBs while TU Wien’s decades of experience in commercializing the technology will be a fertile playground to bow the seeds of a sustainable ligninolytic technology.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences polymer sciences
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins enzymes
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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)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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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.
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.
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.
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.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1040 Wien
Austria
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.