The proposed European Academy for Biomedical Science (ENABLE) consortium will connect aspiring European researchers of tomorrow with prominent scientists of today, in particular to inspire and to give them the necessary tools to follow in their footsteps. ENABLE will organize peer-reviewed symposia celebrating European life science achievements from molecule to man/patient. These symposia will have a strong element of public outreach and engagement thereby giving all stakeholders a voice on medical scientific discovery. A new and unique brand of conferences aimed at accelerating life science discovery and personalized medicine. ENABLE scientific symposia: ENABLE will organize an annual scientific symposium, across one of the thematic areas of the partner institutes with the intention of exploring the newest research and pioneering developments. These ENABLE symposia will be organized entirely by a committee of PhD students and postdocs i.e. by and for young researchers, including basic, applied and clinical scientists (in training). ENABLE outreach: ENABLE symposia will actively seek public engagement via outreach activities to the European adult public as well as primary- and high-school children. From rejoicing scientific achievements to public understanding of scientific research, open discussions regarding challenging and ethical topics are paramount, e.g. hype versus hope. These topics will be addressed in specially designed events for the target groups, providing a first European platform for such consultations and knowledge exchange. ENABLing careers: Coupled to the scientific symposium, ENABLE will organize specific career workshops covering essential skills and job opportunities. ENABLing careers will become a hub for promoting open positions for undergraduates and young researchers in European institutions undertaking biomedical and life sciences research.

Genetic tractability of bacterial cells allows generating synthetic microbial chassis platforms (SMCPs) with remarkable biotechnological applications but their functionality currently faces important off-genome limitations due to deficient protein-protein interactions, unfavorable protein stoichiometry or generation of toxic intermediates that ultimately compromise the industrial production processes. To solve this problem, Rafts4Biotech project will take advantage of our recent discovery, that bacteria are able to organize subcellular membrane compartments similar to the so-called lipid rafts of eukaryotic cells, to improve/protect specific cellular processes. Rafts4Biotech project will engineer bacterial cells to confine biotechnologically relevant reactions into bacterial lipid rafts to optimize their stoichiometry and protect cells from undesirable metabolic interferences. Hence, the Rafts4Biotech project will produce new generation reliable and robust SMCPs in which industrial production processes are confined in bacterial lipid rafts, released from their classical off-genome limitations and optimized for industrial production. Moreover, this concept can be applied to many prokaryotes, since lipid rafts happens to occur in many bacterial species. Based on this versatility, Raft4Biotech project will use two biotechnologically relevant biosystems, Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli, to engineer synthetic bacterial lipid rafts to optimize the performance of three challenging biochemical processes in the fields of pharmaceutical, cosmetics and feed industrial sectors. To achieve this, Rafts4Biotech consortium combines different expertise in synthetic biology, systems biology and mathematical modeling and it includes a number of SMEs that will actively work in this project and will translate this technology into market application. The technology developed by Rafts4Biotec will optimize multistep industrial processes and invigorate European research.

The application of enzymes in industrial processes is increasingly important to achieve the EU’s sustainability goals and strengthen the bioeconomy, replacing oil-based chemistry. However, enzymes still find hurdles for their industrial application: low success rates of discovery and engineering; tedious and expensive methods to explore diversity; and limited activity/stability in the final application. RADICALZ assembles an interdisciplinary and intersectoral consortium to deliver faster, more versatile and more affordable tools for enzyme discovery and engineering, enabling the development of novel enzymes, new formulations and ingredients for more environment-friendly and healthier consumer products. This project will: i) develop new droplet microfluidic tools to find suitable enzymes for consumer products; ii) develop user-friendly software solutions based on machine learning (ML) for faster and more accurate enzyme engineering; iii) develop novel enzymes and bio-based, bio-catalytically synthesized ingredients for consumer products (glycosides, wash-enhancing enzymes, bio-based thickeners, natural antioxidants and fragrances); iv) develop bio-based, condition-responsive capsules for the protection and triggered release of enzymes and ingredients in the formulation of consumer products. RADICALZ will reduce the average time for enzyme discovery and evolution to <4 weeks, access 10 bio-based ingredients to replace oil-based chemistry, reducing the environmental impact –supported in depth in ≥3 cases– across 3 different types of consumer products. RADICALZ assembles 6 leading European companies and 6 pioneer academic teams expert in enzyme discovery and evolution, biocatalysis, chemical engineering, microbiology, soft-matter physics and microfluidics. The planned activities span 48 months and 7 work packages. The project is estimated at ca. 6 M€ (42% allocated to industrial partners and 64% of the total dedicated to creating highly-qualified jobs).

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are the second most common immune-mediated disorders in Europe, affecting more particularly young people. The current therapies, including antibodies, show three main drawbacks: efficacy, tolerability and convenience. NEW DEAL solution will offer radical therapeutic progress for all IBD patients, thanks to the improved efficacy and increased safety of the specific JAK3 inhibition, which has been proven in clinics to be a target of great interest, the better tolerability of siRNA in term of immunogenicity and the good convenience with oral administration. To achieve this challenge, we will address three objectives: i) Specifically inhibit JAK 3 in a highly selective and safer manner by the mean of siRNA carefully designed and validated, ii) Deliver the siRNA therapeutic locally to the inflamed gut, by combining innovative nanostructured lipid carriers enabling their transport across the mucus, the intestinal barrier and the plasma membrane of the target cells, with polymeric capsules for protecting siRNA nanotherapeutics during their transit along the GI tract, thus allowing an oral administration, and iii) Promote the clinical translation and the future industrial transfer of this new clinical product, by addressing manufacturing, safety and efficacy evaluation at the late preclinical stage, to generate a Regulatory Submission Package and a Clinical Development Plan. The NEW DEAL project brings together clinical experts on IBD, leading scientists in nanomedicine, RNAi biology and immunology, innovative SMEs with a strong background in nanosafety, design of capsules and regulatory issues and an established pharma company with historic expertise on gastroenterology medicinal products. If successful, NEW DEAL will open new avenues for siRNA-based therapy in IBD with oral administration.

Microorganisms thriving in extreme environments are a largely untapped reservoir of enzymes, chemicals, and pharmaceutical compounds. Their unique metabolic pathways and regulatory mechanisms enable them to survive under harsh conditions and represent invaluable resources to produce innovative bio-products, offering solutions to address challenges that conventional model organisms cannot. However, extremophile microorganisms remain remarkably underutilized as providers of bio-based solutions. Sampling extreme environments, screening, identifying and isolating the pertinent microbes is cumbersome, costly and imposes a significant environmental footprint, resulting in low yields, elevated costs, and extended times to market. Developing innovative methodologies is imperative to surmount these barriers in the study of extremophile microbiomes, and to leverage their capabilities for ecological and economic benefits. XTREAM will unlock the potential of aquatic extremophiles for the discovery of enzymes, drugs, metabolites and chemicals by interdisciplinarily developing innovative tools to facilitate rapid, efficient and sustainable exploration of extreme microbiomes, heralding a new era in the industrial application of extremophiles. The expected results of XTREAM include discovering microbes, enzymes, resistance genes and biosynthetic clusters, with a hybrid workflow of in silico and microfluidics-based discovery, resulting in the commercialization of e.g. ≥200 enzymes for biocatalysis and biorefining, 3 new solutions for antifouling, increasing the revenue of our industrial partners by ca. 10%. XTREAM assembles 5 leading European SMEs, 4 academic teams and 4 RTOs that have pioneered approaches in functional metagenomics, extremophiles, microfluidics, microbial ecology, and synthetic biology. Diverse XTREAM partners (from synthetic biology to ingredients) at different stages in the research-to-market process provides a unique opportunity for broad value creation.