Objective
The ORIGIN project (Optimized Routing and Industrial Generation of Ingredients from Nature) directly addresses the Horizon Europe call HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-CIRCBIO-08: Bioprospecting and optimized production of terrestrial natural products, which seeks innovative, sustainable routes to bio-based ingredients. Current supply chains for high-value natural products; used in nutraceuticals, cosmetics, F&F and Pharmarely heavily on wild harvesting of species such as Rhodiola rosea and Panax ginseng. This unsustainable practice threatens biodiversity, consumer safety, and the resilience of European industries. Precision fermentation offers a solution, but today’s fragmented, costly, and slow pipelines require up to a decade to deliver a single product.
ORIGIN introduces a digitally powered, end-to-end bioproduction platform that radically shortens development cycles and de-risks innovation. Its five core breakthroughs are: (i) AI-powered large-scale digital bioprospecting, leveraging the world’s largest proprietary, Nagoya-compliant metagenomic database (>10 billion sequences, >1M new species); (ii) AI-driven retrosynthesis and host-aware pathway design; (iii) generative AI-guided enzyme engineering; (iv) multi-host rapid prototyping across E. coli, S. cerevisiae, Y. lipolytica, and A. niger. These are unified by the (v) ORIGIN Co-pilot, a central LLM-based agentic AI serving as an “automated scientist” that integrates data streams across the whole project into a closed-loop Design–Build–Test–Learn cycle.
By project completion, ORIGIN will deliver AI-optimized pathway blueprints for 50 molecules, 10 validated microbial strains, and 3molecules demonstrated at pilot scale (30L to 100L), achieving >10 g/L titers and >95% purity. This will reduce time-to-market from 5–10 years to 2–3 years, cut land use by >90% and GHG emissions by 30–50%, and ensure EU leadership in climate-neutral, biodiversity-friendly bioproduction.
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 computer and information sciences databases
- 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.2.6 - Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
MAIN PROGRAMME
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HORIZON.2.6.6 - Bio-based Innovation Systems in the EU Bioeconomy
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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-IA - HORIZON Innovation Actions
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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-CL6-2025-01
See all projects funded under this callCoordinator
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.
4705-002 BRAGA
Portugal
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
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.