Project description
Engineered enzymes for sustainable chemical manufacturing
Enzymes carry out chemical reactions with remarkable precision, offering significant sustainability advantages over conventional chemical processes in industrial chemistry. However, enzymes are fragile outside their natural environment, losing activity under harsh conditions required for industrial applications such as high temperatures, organic solvents and prolonged reaction times. This mismatch limits their broader adoption. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the STABLE project aims to develop a framework for engineering more stable enzymes. The approach will combine systematic experimental profiling with computational modelling and molecular dynamics simulations. By identifying rules for enzyme stabilisation, the project will accelerate the development of robust biocatalysts for sustainable pharmaceutical and industrial chemical manufacturing.
Objective
Biocatalysis has emerged as a key technology for sustainable chemistry, enabling the use of enzymes that are highly selective and active under mild conditions for the synthesis of pharmaceutical and industrially relevant products. However, despite these advantages, enzyme stability remains a major issue, particularly under harsh, non-natural conditions, such as high substrate loadings, elevated temperatures, prolonged reaction times, and the use of organic solvents, which are essential for solubilizing hydrophobic substrates or simplifying product recovery. This mismatch between natural function and industrial requirements is the core bottleneck preventing biocatalysis from competing with established techniques, such as metal catalysis and fermentation.
Unlike traditional metal catalysts, enzymes can be altered and tuned through protein engineering. Directed evolution has delivered remarkable success, yet it remains resource-intensive and often produces variants optimized only for narrow operational conditions. To rationally engineer more stable enzymes, we must first understand their mechanisms of deactivation. Many predictive tools for stability screening are already established, including FoldX, FireProt, and FuncLib. While powerful, these tools rarely generalize across enzyme classes or predict long-term functional performance. Highlighting the need to integrate dynamic aspects when studying and to identify transferable features for predictive engineering.
STABLE aims to establish transferable design rules for enhancing enzyme operational stability in organic co-solvent systems. We propose a combined wet- and dry-lab approach that combines systematic experimental stability profiling with computational modelling, pattern recognition, and dynamic insights from molecular dynamic simulation. The main objective is to develop a protein-structure-centric decision framework for the predictive engineering of robust biocatalysis for sustainable chemical manufacturing.
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 catalysis biocatalysis
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins enzymes
- engineering and technology industrial biotechnology bioprocessing technologies fermentation
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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)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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)
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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
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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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.
10623 Berlin
Germany
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.