Global terrestrial plant biodiversity remains a largely untapped source of natural bioactive compounds. In fact, valid sources are even “hiding in plain sight”, yet not “within reach” due to lack of effective technical solutions to unlock their potential. In this context, the PROSPLIGN consortium has developed an innovative bioprospecting approach that uses cutting-edge and complementary chemical and enzymatic methods, supported by statistical analysis and coupled with high-throughput detection methods, to enable the discovery of bioactive molecules from lignin, one of the fractions of the most abundant biopolymer on Earth (lignocellulose). Lignin “chemical biodiversity” will enable PROSPLIGN to cover three target markets (pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and fragrances) with a combined market of >€1.4 trillion. The project will use lignin derived from 9 different species and investigate at least 3 different chemical approaches and 10 different enzymes to obtain up to 1000 mixtures of lignin-derived compounds, and then pass a progressively narrower “hit validation funnel” in industrially relevant environments, being screened via up to 17 different bioactivity assays. Sustainable production routes for at least 2 of the most promising compounds per sector, directly or following derivatisation, will be proposed. Compared to traditional approaches, PROSPLIGN's bioprospecting avoids animal cruelty, expensive exploration efforts (no novel animal/plants discovery), disruptive extractions (seeking “hidden gems” in an abundant but underexploited “biomass mine”), and directly targets the liberation of readily testable bio/chemical-functionality present in plant material, superior to other approaches relying on “manipulation-intensive” microbial strain culture or “extrapolation” from DNA/RNA). Ultimately, PROSPLIGN will contribute to a new generation of biobased bioactives, unlocking more value from existing sources whose immense potential has yet to be harnessed.

The MAGIC-MOLFUN doctorial network (DN) will train the next generation of specialists for transforming natural products research. They will be educated in a combination of wet-lab and computational skills to integrate genome mining and metabolomics with cutting-edge pathway discovery- and engineering approaches. There is a fast-growing demand for these combination of skills, but these are rarely taught in current integrated training programs. These multidisciplinary skills and qualifications will be acquired while achieving the scientific goals of the program, namely understanding and developing the complex biosynthesis and production of microbial NPs for cross-sector applications such as medicine, food, agriculture, or biotechnology. Specifically, the Doctoral Candidates (DCs) will work in three areas: (i) develop novel computational tools and algorithms to improve the identification and prediction quality of biosynthetic gene clusters encoding NP biosynthesis in genomic data. This genome-centred approach is complemented by (ii) the use cheminformatics approaches to link metabolomics data of NPs with the genomic data of the producers, which will greatly improve the compound discovery and dereplication process. These two data-centric approaches will finally (iii) converge into experimental applications that discover and characterize novel NPs with promising bioactivities (e.g., antibiotics, pre-/probiotics, agrichemicals, bio-pigments). The scientific training program is complemented by a comprehensive transferable skill training that will equip the DCs for todays’ demands of a successful career in industry and academia. The skills obtained in the DN will enable the DCs to work not only in natural product research but also many other data-intensive areas of biotechnology.

The exploitation of the ocean unraveled a huge diversity of organisms producing innovative compounds used as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals and antifoulings. The aim of BLUEandGREEN is to strength the performance of CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, from the low performing Member State Portugal, in the emergent area of marine biotechnology. This will be done by the establishment of a scientific strategy for stepping up and stimulating scientific excellence and innovation capacity in partnership with four internationally-leading counterparts at the EU level: the University of Helsinki, Finland, the University of Bergen, Norway, GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany, and Fundación MEDINA, Spain. BLUEandGREEN scientific strategy includes: to review the latest research and innovation advances in the sector, identify and address institutional network gaps and deficiencies; to raise staff´s research profile and excellence by training and mentoring; to increase stakeholder interaction and mobilization to research and innovation partnerships; to guide research to contribute to economic growth; to deliver a framework for strengthening a long-term research and innovation environment in marine biotechnology. The network enhancement will enforce cluster dynamics in close interaction with industrial partners to contribute to regional, national and EU Blue Growth strategies, especially to marine biotechnology industry. The implementation of brokerage with stakeholders and market-oriented projects will dismantle trade barriers, increase the ways of communication among partners and promote knowledge enhancements and its conversion in business. Being Portugal, especially North Portugal, a peripheral region, this will contribute to the change its economic landscape, giving new opportunities for development and job creation and reinforcing the role of marine biotechnology in the economic development of Europe.