As the worldwide population expands and nonrenewable resources are increasingly depleted, it is critical to develop renewable sources of goods from plentiful feedstocks. Microorganisms are a key to solving this challenge, as they can be used to manufacture a diverse array of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fuels, food or feed ingredients. Research and development must reduce the costs and time required to move products to market. From improving microbial strains to optimizing scalable processes for fermentation and product recovery, this effort typically takes 10–20 years and $ 70–150 million. Enabling technologies are required to bring R&D time and costs to values that are consistent with industrial and financial expectations, so that sustainable fermentation processes can contribute taking up global challenges. Due to limited knowledge of complicated cellular networks, adaptive laboratory evolution has played critical roles in strain improvement. This approach harnesses natural evolution in the laboratory via iterative cycles of diversity generation and functional selection or screening to isolate evolved mutants with desirable phenotypes. Altar’s technology automates this approach through the implementation of proprietary methods for ensuring controlled selective pressure and contamination-free operation while iterating selection cycles. The innovation will bring digitalization, modularity, versatility and novel selection features, hereby enabling for scale-up while addressing wider application field. Moreover, the development of a cloud evolution platform will enable Altar to bring a flexible and affordable solution to the market. The project will generate new R&D services in the field of strain development based on a unique technology for directed evolution of microorganisms. These services will significantly reduce time and money spent in R&D for achieving microorganism strains with required performance to reach economic relevance in industrial context.

Microbiomes have high potential to improve biobased processes. For example, in soil and groundwater they can degrade organic contaminants, a process called bioremediation. In Europe about 324,000 severely contaminated sites exist, which pose a risk to humans and the environment. Conventional remediation technologies to clean them are often too expensive and technically Microbiomes have a high potential to improve processes in the bio-based industry. Like the microbiome in the gut, that supports the body in the digestion of food, microbiomes in environmental compartments like soil and groundwater can produce enzymes that can degrade organic contaminants caused by human activities. In MIBIREM we will develop a TOOLBOX that helps to better develop applications for microbiomes. The TOOLBOX includes molecular methods for a better understand and monitoring, isolation and cultivation techniques as well as quality criteria for deposition of whole microbiomes and last, but not least methods that are applied to improve specific functions of microbiomes like microbiome evolution and enrichment cultures and microcosm tests. The TOOLBOX is developed for the environmental applications of microbiomes for ‘bioremediation’. For that purpose, three use-cases were selected. In these three use-cases the degradation of organic contaminants in soil and groundwater by active microbiomes is investigated and developed. The three groups of contaminants are cyanides, hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) and petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC). The project starts with sampling of contaminated sites to isolate microbiomes active in degradation and to gain data for the development of a prediction tool that helps guide bioremediation. Isolated microbiomes and degrading strains will be deposited and will also be improved via laboratory evolution. Finally, the performance of the isolated microbiomes will be tested based on the gained knowledge about degrading microbiomes in pilot tests under real field conditions.

Successfully scaling up the sustainable and biodegradable materials is essential for the future growth of European industry. To compete with well-established fossil-based chemicals, biobased alternatives need to solve the triple equation of environmental, safe, economic and societal performance. At the same time it must be economically viable on an industrial scale and possess properties akin or superior to existing petroleum-derived analogues. Few biobased polymers have met this challenge. NEXT-STEP will build on the H2020 BioCatPolymers project to demonstrate a sustainable, safe and economically viable production process for a new chemical platform with large scale applications, notably in the bio-based polymer market. NEXT-STEP will use Harwdood sugars produced from sustainably managed forest at the flagship plant of the project partner Fibenol. NEXT-STEP has defined ambitious KPIs for its process regarding its economic performances as well as its Biomass and Energy efficiency. The new chemical platform, the 3-methyl-d-valerolactone (3MdVL) will improve the sustainability and recyclability of polyurethane (PU) products and unlock new engineering plastic applications for Polylactic acid (PLA) co-polymers. Together with its derivate 3-methyl 1,5-pentanediol (3MPD), the 3MdvL can also be used as a biobased polyol component in the traditional PU and other plastic production processes. NEXT-STEP will demonstrate the applicability of its chemical platform by demonstrating its use as a feedstock for the production of (i) Polylactic acid (PLA) co-polymers for shoe outsole, and of (ii) recyclable Non Isocyanate Polyurethane foams for shoe mid-sole and insulation materials applications. Five other applications will be selected for demonstration together with the polymer industry during the project.

For biorefined fuels to fully replace fossil carbons, we must identify feedstock sources which are essentially unlimited in capacity and scalability and are independent of agriculture and forestry land use. Here, we propose to use electricity – preferably produced from renewable sources and at off pick hours – as the sole energy source for microbial growth and the conversion of CO2 into fuels. We aim to tackle the shortcoming of previous technologies by using completely soluble formate as a mediator between electrical current and living cells. Within an integrated electrobioreactor, CO2 will be reduced to formate at a very high rate, and the formate will be consumed by an engineered E. coli to produce propane and isobutene, gaseous hydrocarbons that are easy to separate from the liquid broth. Both propane and isobutene can be further converted into a range of products, including excellent fuel substitutes (e.g., isooctane), using conventional chemical engineering methodologies. Our approach comprises a truly interdisciplinary effort. Material scientists will design novel electrode compositions and structures, which will be used by electrochemists to optimize electrochemical formate production at high efficiency and current density. Metabolic engineers will adapt E. coli for growth on formate via two synthetic formate assimilation pathways, specifically designed to fit the metabolism of this model bacterium. Synthetic pathways for propane and isobutene biosynthesis will be implemented in the formatotrophic strains. Process engineers will construct a unique electrobioreactor to support simultaneous formate production and consumption. Experts in environmental assessment will analyze the benefits of the suggested technology, and the project vision and results will be disseminated to the scientific community and general public. The technology put forward in this proposal could have a transformative effect on the way we produce our chemicals and fuels.

Today’s exploitation of nature is no longer sustainable. New sustainable industrial processes must urgently be implemented. White Biotechnology, also known as Industrial Biotechnology, has potential to build a greener future by replacing fossil-based processes for the production of our essential needs. This field uses living microorganisms such as yeast, bacteria and microalgae to generate sustainable industrial products and processes. However, despite significant advancements in genome editing tools, metabolic engineering and data exploitation, these techniques fail in developing microorganisms fulfilling demanding industrial requirements for the production of a wide array of products. For this reason, the potential of White Biotechnology still has to be achieved. Altar is a French Deep Tech founded in 2017 which develops a disruptive platform harnessing the power of natural selection for the development of novel microorganisms fulfilling specific industrial needs. Our innovation induces in vivo directed evolution or adaptative evolution of microorganisms in order to adapt them to the harsh conditions of industrial processes. Altar’s Evolution Platform is based on proprietary technology and culture protocols controlled by novel algorithms. Moreover, its operation is completely automated and digitalized. Altar has built an enthusiastic and skilled team of 8 women and men with combined experience in business, biotechnology, software, engineering, fluidics and microbiology. The EIC Accelerator project aims to finalize the Evolution Platform’s development and commercialize it globally. We gathered 19 letters of interest highlighting interest from various international stakeholders. Our ambition for the next decade is to become a global leader in the development of microorganisms for White Biotechnology and therefore pave the way towards a sustainable and green European future.