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H2020Doctoral network2018–2023

EVOdrops · directed EVOlution in DROPS

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2018-10-01 → 2023-09-30
EU contribution
€3,452,423
Participants
19
Scheme
MSCA-ITN

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

directed EVOlution in DROPS

The bio-economy is poised for substantial growth, with projections indicating that by 2030, biotechnological production will contribute significantly to various sectors. Estimates suggest a substantial presence, such as 35% in chemical and industrial products, 80% in pharmaceutical and diagnostic production, and 50% in agricultural output. Industries, continually seeking process and product enhancements, face challenges in natural evolution's slow pace. Natural processes, including Darwinian evolution, optimize proteins in response to environmental pressures over billions of years. Enzymes, as nature's catalysts, play vital roles in diverse cellular reactions. While some natural enzymes hold industrial promise, relying on natural evolution for their improvement has drawbacks: limited control over selection pressures and inability to enhance non-natural systems. Directed evolution, mimicking nature's principles in the laboratory, addresses these limitations. Unlike the lengthy natural evolution, directed evolution combines rapid genetic diversity generation, ultra-high throughput screening, and selection for efficient industrial processes. Microfluidics, a versatile technology, integrates into industrial processes, employing droplets as micro-reactors in miniaturized, automated assays. This enables ultra-high-throughput screening, reducing reagent costs and facilitating experiments impossible with other techniques. The microfluidic market has witnessed impressive growth, driven by start-ups and industrial giants entering the sector. The technology's potential applications in diagnostics, healthcare, and bio-resource transformation contribute to its expanding market. In a later project phase, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerged as a crucial element. Recognizing AI's potential in microfluidics and directed evolution, the EVOdrops project incorporated it. AI, applied in health and medical fields for early diagnosis and personalized medicine, extends its utility to other industrially important molecules. The convergence of AI with micro-/acoustofluidics expands the EVOdrops portfolio, emphasizing the interdisciplinary approach for enhanced outcomes. This integration aligns with the evolving landscape of technological development, with AI gaining prominence during the pandemic. The recognition of AI's significant potential prompted its inclusion in the EVOdrops program, showcasing a dynamic response to technological advancements.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Natural evolution is a powerful process that has given rise to the functionally diverse set of proteins present in all living systems. Repetitive rounds of mutation, selection and amplification have optimised nature’s catalysts, the enzymes, to perform an enormous range of different reactions. However, natural evolution has driven the optimisation of enzymes subjected to living functions of microorganisms, according to ill-defined and fluctuating external conditions and is not suitablefor industrial processes since it lacks of control of selection pressure. In EVOdrops, we will use directed evolution to overcome these limitations. It is a synthetic, man-made approach of evolution, aiming at improving living systems based on predefined needs, controlling the external selection pressure. While natural evolution took billions of years to optimisemacromolecules, directed evolution – to be efficient in an industrial process – requires both the generation of genetic diversity and ultra-high throughput screening capabilities to recover the variants of interest. We will develop and optimise these tools using the ground-breaking potential of droplet-based microfluidics for high-throughput experimentation and thefine control of gene library construction. EVOdrops, a European training network, will bring together the leading research scientists, laboratories and industries in Europe with outstanding expertise in protein engineering and microfluidics and 13 early stage researchers. We will offer an extensive multi- and interdisciplinary training to ensure that they can solve these urgent and unmet challenges in biotechnology and biomedicine. We will use a multidisciplinary approach combining soft matter, microfluidics and chemical biology to design solutions for the selection of new enzymes of industrial and therapeutic interest. In the future, our approaches can be generalised to challenges involving high-throughput miniaturised biochemical or cell-based assays.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW · GlasgowCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
  • BASF SE · Ludwigshafen Am RheinGermany
  • BIOMILLENIA · RomainvilleFrance
  • BLACKTRACE HOLDINGS LIMITED · RoystonUnited Kingdom
  • CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisFrance
  • DROP-TECH LTD · CambridgeUnited Kingdom
  • ECOLE SUPERIEURE DE PHYSIQUE ET DECHIMIE INDUSTRIELLES DE LA VILLE DEPARIS · ParisFrance
  • EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH · ZuerichSwitzerland
  • INSTYTUT CHEMII FIZYCZNEJ POLSKIEJ AKADEMII NAUK · WarszawaPoland
  • MICROFLUIDIC CHIPSHOP GMBH · JenaGermany
  • PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE · CambridgeUnited States
  • SPHERE FLUIDICS LIMITED · GREAT ABINGTON CAMBRIDGESHIREUnited Kingdom
  • TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · MuenchenGermany
  • THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · CAMBRIDGEUnited Kingdom
  • THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG · PokfulamHong Kong SAR China
  • UAB THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC BALTICS · VilniusLithuania
  • UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN · LOUVAIN LA NEUVEBelgium
  • UNIVERSITE PARIS CITE · ParisFrance
  • VILNIAUS UNIVERSITETAS · VilniusLithuania

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union