The concept of the EC FP7 METACODE project is to perform genetic code engineering in microbial strains with parallel recruitment of novel bio-orthogonal chemistries for mass production of desired protein/peptide based products. In combination with computational and classical chemical synthetic approaches as well as chemo-informatics, enzyme guided evolution, synthetic metabolism, and directed evolution of microbial strains, artificial industrial microbial strains will be designed. This will enable the access to genetically robust and safe strains with added/novel functionalities and topologies from renewable resources. These strains will be characterized with alternative reading of the genetic code (genetic firewall) and with predetermined chemistries (metathesis), as well as necessary robustness for efficient industrial use.
Biofaction is going to lead a work package and contribute to biosafety risk analysis, look into the governance and regulatory context, explore ethical and philosophical questions of new-to-nature organisms, and carry out public perception and dialogue activities.
Partners in METACODE:
- TU Berlin (Ned Budisa, Roderich Süssmuth)
- Isthmus France (Philippe Marliere)
- KU Leuven (Piet Herdewijn)
- Uni Basel (Tom Ward)
- CEA France (Marie Heck)
- Molecular Networks (Johnny Gasteiger)
- BIOFACTION (Markus Schmidt)
- ETH Zurich (Sven Panke)
See: www.meta-code.eu
Contact person: Dr. Markus Schmidt