Ongoing Projects
TwInn4MicroUp
Twinning Innovation Hub for Microbial Platforms in Plastic Upcycling
European Union’s Horizon Europe call HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-02 under Grant Agreement No 101159570
2024 - 2027
Plastics pervade many industries, with production soaring from 1.5 Mt in 1950 to 359 Mt in 2019, and virgin plastics reaching 8,000 Mt in 2020. The result? A surge in plastic waste and environmental threats, with 20 Mt entering aquatic ecosystems annually—dubbed the “7th continent of plastic.” Traditional waste management is failing, driving the need for sustainable solutions.
TwInn4MicroUp leads with an innovative approach, transforming plastic monomers, derived from green plastic depolymerization technologies, into high-value biomaterials and bioactive compounds via Synthetic Microbial Biotechnology.
This project aims to build an EU value chain, converting single-use and hard-to-recycle plastics into next-generation bioactive compounds and biomaterials, ensuring high environmental and economic value.
EnZyReMix
Chemoenzymatic recycling of mixed plastic waste
H.F.R.I., Greece 2.0, Basic Research Financing Action, Sub-action II, Funding Projects in Leading-Edge Sectors
2024 - 2025
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, almost 10 million tons of plastic waste end up in the ocean every year. The degradation and recycling of plastic waste that has been accumulating in the terrestrial and aquatic environment is of utmost importance for the transition to a sustainable mode of living.
The central aim of EnZyReMix is to enable a paradigm step in the frame of a circular plastics economy, where, through developing innovative separation methodologies for mixed plastic waste, the derived monomers and oligomers can be chemically and biologically re-polymerised overcoming the obstacles for their mechanical recycling.
The proposed mild bioprocesses will be based on novel biocatalysts presenting enhanced selectivity towards PLA/PET substrates obtained through
a) the screening of established plastic-degrading enzyme libraries and
b) the proteomic analysis of fungal strains isolated from plastic-contaminated areas.
The studied polymers will be aged through their exposure to conditions that simulate different soil and sea environments, thus working closer to a “real” case-study. The most potent enzyme candidates will be structurally characterized, elucidating their mode of action and thus, suggest protein engineering approaches that could lead to biocatalysts with improved activity and selectivity on PET or PLA plastics.
Finally, oligomers derived from the chemoenzymatic degradation of PET and PLA plastics will be submitted to Solid State Polymerization to be regenerated to new polymeric materials. The biotechnological upcycling of PLA and PET hydrolysates will be microbially realised towards the production of PHAs and bacterial nanocellulose, which are fully sustainable and can have equivalent properties to virgin fossil-based materials.
EnZyReMix will expand the set of available biocatalysts and create bridges with the field of polymer technology, while serving as a benchmark for future plastic re- and upcycling of mixed plastic wastes.
Arabinoglucuronoxylan degradation
Evaluating the potential of Humicola sp. secretomes towards corn arabinoglucuronoxylan degradation via quantitative proteomics
Kemin Industries Inc., Iowa, USA
2024 - 2025
Corn arabinoglucuronoxylan (AGX) is an example of a notoriously recalcitrant type of hemicellulose, owing to its branched main chain xylan that bears various chemical substitutions on its β-1,4-linked xylose monomers.
Its efficient and complete degradation poses great challenges, and it is widely accepted that variable enzymatic specificities— working in a synergistic manner— are required towards this end.
Considering the recalcitrant nature of corn AGX, an alternative to defined mixtures of recombinantly expressed and purified enzymes would be the complete secretome of a fungal species that can naturally grow on relevant lignocellulosic materials.
The objective of this project is to determine the protein components of the industrially relevant ascomycete Humicola sp. secretome, grown on different lignocellulosic carbon sources, and to identify the differentially expressed lignocellulolytic enzymes that are responsible for corn AGX degradation.
Fungal fermentations, selected in vitro enzymatic assays, and simulated digestive system tests will inform the design of the quantitative proteomics analyses that will, eventually, elucidate the secretome-based AGX degradation.
PlastOmics
Discovery of novel enzymes for the bioconversion of plastics using multi-omics
H.F.R.I., 2nd Call for Research Projects to support Faculty Members &l Researchers
2022 - 2025
Even though human-designed polymers allowed great advances in modern societies, they also represent a considerable threat to the biosphere. The feasible long-term use of such polymers in the face of growing demands for bioconvertible products is not guaranteed. This is mainly due to challenges in physico-chemical processing of these materials, for which humankind has not yet developed efficient bioconversion tools.
Novel enzymes are urgently needed to promote research in bioremediation and upcycling, and PlastOmics aims to tackle this challenge. Fungi have developed enzymatic strategies for decomposing biopolymers such as lignocellulose, and thus isolates deriving from environments polluted with synthetic polymers may have evolved their enzymatic toolbox for this bioconversion. Noting the analogy of challenges (crystallinity, polymeric nature and insolubility) intrinsic to both lignocellulosics and plastics, our ambition is to identify fungi, and enzymes thereof, that can convert synthetic polymers widely used today, such as polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene and polystyrene.
In PlastOmics, we will screen a collection of uncharacterized fungi isolated from contaminated regions for their capacity to bioconvert said polymers. The most competent isolates will be characterized with bioinformatic analyses of multi-omic data (genomes, secretomes, etc) to unravel polymer degradation pathways and corresponding genes. These genes will be subsequently expressed in heterologous hosts and characterized both biochemically and structurally.
PlastOmics will expand the set of available biocatalysts and create bridges with the field of polymers, while serving as a benchmark for future plastic degradation studies. Moreover, the project outcomes will enrich current knowledge on structural determinants of bioconversion enzymes, and thus suggest protein engineering approaches for development of a new generation of biocatalysts with improved activity and stability on plastics.
PlastOmics aspires to resorb the time gap at the origin of the current enzyme-substrate landscape mismatch, drawing inspiration from natural recycling processes.