GreenRubber · Sustainable Production of Natural Rubber Using Yeast
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2023-01-01 → 2024-12-31
- EU contribution
- €230,774
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
GreenRubber - Sustainable Production of Natural Rubber Using Yeast
Natural rubber is a crucial material used in over 50,000 products, from car tires to medical devices, due to its durability, elasticity, and insulation properties. The global demand for natural rubber is increasing, especially in fast-developing Asian countries. However, all commercial natural rubber is currently sourced from rubber trees, mainly grown in South-East Asia, which makes the supply vulnerable to disease, climate change, and weather disruptions. Additionally, the supply chain for rubber contributes to high carbon emissions and geopolitical risks. In my original plan, I had three main goals to produce natural rubber using yeast: 1. Find the missing components needed for rubber production by experimenting with a plant called Nicotiana benthamiana. 2. Modify yeast cells to produce many small structures called lipid bodies (LBs). These LBs would act like rubber particles, providing a space for rubber to be made and stored inside the yeast. 3. Recreate the natural rubber production process in yeast and fine-tune it to make high-quality rubber. However, I didn’t pursue the third goal because the first two didn’t yield the expected results. Instead, we shifted the project’s focus to a new direction: creating a yeast cell factory to produce materials for rubber alternatives. As part of this new approach, we added a new goal: 2’. Find the most effective enzyme (myrcene synthase) in yeast and show that yeast can produce myrcene at a rate of half a gram per liter in the lab. This new goal was successfully achieved.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Natural Rubber is a very important and widely used industrial raw material, which cannot be replaced by other equivalents because of its unique properties (e.g. durability and insulation). Synthetic rubber produced by petrochemicals, is not only detrimental to the environment, but also cannot replace natural rubber due to its lower quality. Therefore, for many industrial applications (e.g. in car tires), humankind still heavily relies on rubber extracted from the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. However, the demand of natural rubber is continuously increasing due to the fast pace of motorization in Asian countries, like China or India, while production is sensitive to disease outbreaks or weather conditions. For these reasons, to become self-sufficient in natural rubber is within the European strategic priorities. Thus, because both natural and synthetic rubber production is no longer sustainable, there is an urgent need to establish environmentally friendly methods for the synthesis of natural rubber, in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 9, 11, 12, 13 and 15). To meet this demand, I will apply an interdisciplinary approach to develop a yeast-based cell factory to produce high-quality natural rubber from cheap and readily renewable materials like sugar. My research expertise in molecular biology, polymer bioproduction, and biochemistry, make me the ideal candidate to implement this project. Combining my current knowledge, with the systematic education on metabolic engineering and pathway elucidation that will be provided by the host lab, I will build a unique profile as an expert in polymer bioproduction using microbial hosts. GreenRubber will help me develop and establish an independent international career on harnessing industrial microorganisms (e.g. yeast) to bioproduce polymers for high-end applications such as medical consumables.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101067117
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5183a38f6&appId=PPGMS
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5fd363d26&appId=PPGMS
Data: CORDIS, © European Union