Project description
New approach enables real-time, label-free monitoring of protein structure
Proteins, fundamental building blocks of life, require precise monitoring during pharmaceutical production to ensure stability and efficacy. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PROTEMIC project addresses the need for dynamic, in situ monitoring of changes in protein structure. Current techniques could cause contamination and rely on indirect measurements. Leveraging advancements from former initiatives, PROTEMIC integrates physics, analytical chemistry, and biochemistry to determine protein structure from a sample’s mid-infrared absorption spectrum without the use of labels or reagents. By embedding metasurface and photonic circuits into reaction vessels, PROTEMIC should enable real-time, label-free, mid-IR spectroscopy for the first time. Project outcomes promise scalable protein screening for oral vaccines, accelerating drug discovery and ensuring quality control in applications like human milk pasteurisation.
Objective
Proteins are the fundamental building blocks of life and are complex biopolymers. The pharmaceutical industry and medicine have an unmet requirement for dynamic, insitu monitoring of structural changes of proteins. Proteins may incorrectly fold during the expression process, or denature in response to changes in temperature, pH amongst others. These deviations lead to loss of function, loss of therapeutic effectiveness, increased immunogenicity or reduced product shelf life. For example, growing amounts of human milk are donated to serve the needs of pre-term infants but there is a lack of quality control to monitor protein quality during pasteurisation and storage. Current analysis techniques require extracting samples from the reaction vessel, which risks contamination, or use indirect measurements of the protein structure.
PROTEMIC is a Double Doctorate Training Network that brings together the disciplines of Physics, Analytical Chemistry and Biochemistry to determine the protein structure from the samples Mid Infrared absorption spectrum without the use of labels or reagents. PROTEMIC builds on the teams experiences with the successful OPTAPHI joint doctoral network and embeds the Doctoral Candidates into multiple disciplines to gain skills that cannot be obtained from a single host, and master biochemistry and spectroscopy. The project builds and expands on breakthroughs recently made in the OPTAPHI project, for example new photonic integrated circuits and world first photothermal spectroscopy results. PROTEMIC embeds metasurface and photonic integrated circuits into the reaction vessel to provide insitu mid IR spectroscopy for the first time and map structural changes during dynamic reactions in realtime. These results will improve the efficiency of the production of protein based pharmaceuticals and through the use of metasurface microtitre plates, allow the scalable screening of proteins for the encapsulation of oral vaccines, accelerating drug discovery.
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.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteins
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsspectroscopy
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Coordinator
T12 P928 Cork
Ireland