PAcMEN · Predictive and Accelerated Metabolic Engineering Network

Predictive and Accelerated Metabolic Engineering Network

The United Nations have adopted a historical agreement on reduction of carbon dioxide emissions on the 12th of December 2015. The ambition is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above the pre-industrial level, which means limiting the CO2 emissions to 40 gigatones per year in 2030. This will require to double utilization of biomass and waste. A shift towards bio-based production of chemicals and fuels can significantly reduce our dependency on oil and gas and lead to a more environmentally friendly economic growth. The main challenge for industrial biotechnology is the development of novel cell factories that can efficiently convert feedstocks into the product of interest at minimum processing cost. Currently, it takes over 50 man-years and over $50 million to develop a cell factory, an investment that is difficult to finance and recover. Hence, there is a critical need for novel technologies and approaches that can change the paradigm and deliver novel cell factories faster and cheaper. For that we need researchers with interdisciplinary scientific training and with insight into the industrial biotechnology processes and business. The European Training Network on Predictive and Accelerated Metabolic Engineering Network (PAcMEN) is training sixteen Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in the following complementary research disciplines, which together offer an opportunity to revolutionize the development of cell factories for biotechnology: • Systems Biology and Modeling, • Synthetic Biology and Protein Engineering, and • Applications for Development of New Biorefinery Processes. The overall objective of PAcMEN research programme is to bring step-change innovation into development of cell factories for industrial biotechnology, where modeling and utilization of omics data will enable more predictive cell factory design and synthetic biology will accelerate strain construction and screening. The ultimate research aim is to cut down the cost and time of developing new cell factories. Following 4 years of exciting ESR training, the PAcMEN ITN project is proud to conclude that it has achieved its main objectives on i) development of predictive and accelerated engineering of yeast cell factories, but also its secondary objectives on ii) completion of the training of a cadre of interdisciplinary next-generation metabolic engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset, and iii) strengthen inter-sectorial long-term collaborations.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union