AIMS Cluster

In our oceans, rivers and lakes lies an untapped potential to improve our health. Cyanobacteria, micro- and macroalgae produce an infinite number of molecules, many of which have properties beneficial to health. They can relieve pain, alleviate inflammation, or boost our microbiome. However, most algae remain unstudied, with their health potential unexploited. That is why we launched Algae4IBD, to develop commercial products for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) prevention and treatment using aquatic natural biological resources. Over four years, we will study under- and unexplored algae and look for compounds with pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory, prebiotic, or antibiotic effects.

InnCoCells is a four-year project launched in 2021 which aims to develop innovative plant-based production processes for the commercial exploitation of scientifically validated cosmetic ingredients using profitable and sustainable cell cultures, aeroponic cultivation, and greenhouse/field cultivation. InnCoCells is focusing on underutilised plants that are sourced unsustainably, as well as underutilised by-products and waste fractions from the agri-food industry. The project is developing sustainable and cost-effective production systems with a small environmental footprint for high-value plant-derived cosmetic ingredients and compounds by integrating biotechnology-based approaches into sustainable production chains featuring cutting-edge innovative technologies. These products are then tested in a broad panel of cell-based assays and ultimately in human clinical trials to prove their efficacy.

The marine environment remains a largely untapped and poorly understood source of natural products that could have great potential in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Barriers include finding and identifying bacteria and their molecules, sustainably extracting active ingredients, and the commercial and regulatory difficulties of bringing a discovery to market. With a growing global population and the climate and biodiversity crises, MARBLES will address these challenges by sustainably harnessing new marine bioactive compounds with pharmaceutical and nutritional applications, as well as producing microbes and microbial communities for bioprotection.

The SECRETed project will fully exploit the potential of systems and synthetic biology toolboxes and their application within aquatic biotechnology to develop novel hybrid compounds for the agrochemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and chemistry sectors. Biosynthetic pathways of marine and extremophilic microorganisms will be reverse engineered to infer the individual roles of their constituent genes, which will be further combined for the production of non-natural biosurfactants and siderophores with tailor-made properties. Biosurfactants are compounds with surface-active nature tendency to adsorb at interfaces, while siderophores have the ability to chelate and transport Fe3+ ions. An iterative procedure following the Design-Build-Test-Learn methodological steps will be used to produce new microbial strains that support the selected genetic elements and satisfy sustainable industrial processing solutions for the production of biosurfactants and siderophores.

The marine microbiome is one of the fastest growing segments of the blue bioeconomy, and its study is vital for the discovery, understanding, protection and utilisation of our ocean resources. BlueRemediomics will develop novel tools and approaches to explore marine microbiome data, uniting an international consortium of experts that will work on the discovery and production of high value sustainable marine microbiome-based products, processes and services. BlueRemediomics will systematically catalogue marine microbiome data and marine culture collections to facilitate the development of industrial processes that reduce waste, increase the reuse of natural products and by-products, and improve aquaculture processes. The project simultaneously aims to ensure equitable access to and sharing of benefits derived from any new products, such as new medicines or cosmeceuticals. It will also gauge the societal appetite for biobased solutions.

Only a small portion of marine microbiomes, which make about 90% of all marine biomass, can be grown in a lab. Because of this they are an underutilised source of proteins, carbohydrate polymers, and other bioactive substances. Sampling the marine biodiversity, screening, identifying, and isolating the pertinent microorganisms is time-consuming, costly, and results in low yields, high expenses, and extended time to market. In four years, Bluetools wants to make marine microbes easier to research and use through innovative strategies.

The next generation of specialists 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 combinations 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.

The EUREMAP project aims to create a pipeline of research services in marine bioprospecting to support and enable the discovery of novel bioactive natural products from marine organisms. This pipeline will comprise a wide range of services spanning the biodiscovery process, from isolating specific molecules to testing their applications in clinical trials. Available to researchers from academia and industry, the EUREMAP service pipeline will boost the rate of marine biodiscovery, strengthening the Blue Economy in Europe and beyond and providing our society with new applications for the health and food production sectors.

MARBLES forms cluster with fellow projects Algae4IBD, InnCoCells and SECRETed (AIMS) funded under the Call ‘FNR-11-2020: Prospecting aquatics and terrestrial natural biological resources for biologically active compounds.’

HOTBIO is a MSCA Doctoral Network in marine biodiscovery where secondary metabolites from marine microorganisms will be developed into well-characterised compounds that can be applied as medicines, agrochemicals or aquaculture drugs. This goal will be achieved by combining the chemical diversity that can be accessed through a traditional bioprospecting pipeline with downstream efforts such as computer-aided drug design (CADD), medicinal chemistry, target deconvolution and ADMET profiling.

A brochure describing the cluster's four projects, their challenges, objectives and expected results. Please feel free to distribute the AIMS Cluster brochure to promote the projects and their valuable research.