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Metallo-enzymes and Cells for Green Environmental Alternatives

Project description

Metalloenzymes to mitigate climate change

New and effective nature-based strategies are needed to help avert the looming climate catastrophe. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the McGEA project aims to develop nature-inspired strategies to mitigate climate change. The project will use metalloenzymes as robust biocatalysts to address three critical environmental issues: CO2 capture, (bio)hydrogen production, and wastewater monitoring and remediation. It will focus on developing hybrid materials and live bacterial cells to carry and regenerate the metalloenzymes. The project involves research groups from both the EU and overseas, aiming to integrate fundamental scientific discovery with metalloenzyme-based processes and prototype devices through staff secondments to build diverse skills.

Objective

"""By far, nature is the best chemist of all time"" according to Nobel Prize winner Frances Arnold. McGEA will develop nature inspired strategies to help avert the pending climate catastrophe. We will discover, characterize, engineer and exploit metalloenzymes as potent biocatalysts to efficiently perform chemically challenging reactions of high environmental impact. Specifically, we will use metalloenzymes to tackle three burning issues that fall squarely in the remit of the EU Green Deal action plan: CO2 capture, (bio)hydrogen production, and wastewater monitoring and remediation. These challenges will be addressed using purified metalloenzymes incorporated into hybrid materials and live bacterial cells as self-regenerating catalytic metalloenzyme carriers. Implementation of these two strategies will proceed with research activities across the full pipeline of metalloenzyme development. This will include i) the assembly of the metallic co-factors, as a prerequisite for establishing protocols for efficient metalloenzyme production, ii) rational redesign, directed evolution and in silico strategies to develop enzyme variants that show improved catalytic activity and stability, and iii) the incorporation of the enzymes into matrices that allow for enzyme reusability, stabilization, or their self-assembly into multi-enzymatic nanostructures for substrate channeling. The execution of this program relies on a strong interdisciplinary and intersectoral team. The McGEA brings together 6 research groups from EU and 2 research groups from overseas, all of them internationally recognized for their scientific excellence, and 3 EU companies that will join forces to accelerate the transition to a climate-neutral Europe. The consortium is designed to provide a diverse portfolio of skills through staff secondments to achieve integration from the stages of fundamental scientific discovery to the development of metalloenzyme-based processes and prototype devices."

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-SE - HORIZON TMA MSCA Staff Exchanges

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-SE-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA
Net EU contribution

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.

€ 372 600,00
Address
CAMPUS DE CAMPOLIDE
1099 085 Lisboa
Portugal

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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.

No data

Participants (8)

Partners (2)

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