Award details

IBCarb - Glycoscience Tools for Biotechnology and Bioenergy

Reference	BB/L013762/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Sabine Flitsch
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Rob Field
Institution	The University of Manchester
Department	Chemistry
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	736,704
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/02/2014
End date	31/01/2019
Duration	60 months

Abstract

Carbohydrates constitute the largest source of biomass on Earth and their exploitation for novel applications in biomaterials, energy, food and health will be critical in moving away from dependence on hydrocarbons to develop sustainable biotechnologies and reduce GHG emissions, ensuring both energy and food security. Glycoscience is a broad term used for all research and technology involving carbohydrates, ranging from cell biology, human nutrition and medicine to carbohydrate-based materials and the conversion of carbohydrates to energy. The analysis, synthesis and biosynthesis of carbohydrates and their modification to industrial products are, therefore, central challenges in both industrial biotechnology and bioenergy. The last twenty years have seen a number of fundamental changes in the Glycosciences generating a technology push with respect to carbohydrate synthesis and modification, enzymology and glycomic analysis. At the same time, there is a technology pull - great demand and opportunities in diverse areas such as biopharmaceuticals (8 out of 10 top selling drugs worldwide are glycoproteins), foods (prebiotics designed for the human gut microbiota), antimicrobials (targeting cell surface recognition and biosynthesis), materials (from biorenewable polysaccharides) or energy (digesting the indigestible). In a number of policy meetings the international Glycoscience community with leadership from a number of UK academics has identified an urgent need to form an interdisciplinary network, IBCarb, to allow for exploitation of opportunities presented by Glycoscience.

Summary

Impact Summary

. Who will benefit from this research? IBCarb will bring together a multi-disciplinary, academia-industry network to review and address the outstanding Glycoscience challenges of the day. Activities will be of direct relevance to: *Industries associated with Health; Renewable Materials, Chemicals and Energy; Food. *Academics interested in carbohydrates in general, structural analysis, synthesis, biotransformations and materials more specifically. *National and international Governments and policy makers involved in sustainable development and environmental impact. *Public sector entities, such as schools, looking to raise awareness of diet-health, renewable chemicals and biodegradable materials. *The wider public, with a general miss-guided perception that "sugars are bad for you". . How will they benefit from this research? *Awareness of glycoscience opportunities will be raised with industry, presenting new opportunities for: biomarker discovery, biopharmaceutical quality control and drug targeting; biomass conversion and the generation of novel functional biopolymers, platform chemicals and energy supplies; development of novel prebiotic sugars to control gut microbiota, low calorie natural sweeteners and designer polysaccharides with functional food potential. As such, glycoscience presents new market opportunities. *Academia will benefit from new opportunities to up-skill in carbohydrate chemistry and biology, increased academia-industry engagement, and access to seed corn funds to establish new interdisciplinary research and development programmes, and to develop preliminary data for larger applications. *Through the proposed IBCarb Roadmap, National and international Governments and policy makers will be better aware of the opportunities that glycotools and sustainable carbohydrate biomass feedstocks have to underpin the health, chemicals, energy and food sectors. *Outreach activities will increase awareness amongst school pupils and the public at large about the many and varied applications and benefits of carbohydrates. More directly they will benefit from improved technologies and products arising from (e.g. diagnostics, nutraceuticals, alternatives to antibiotics, biodegradable plastics, cleaner energy). .What will be done to ensure that they have the opportunity to benefit from this research? IBCarb will hold annual meetings with international lecturers and extensive poster sessions. Satellite activities will include: sandpits, mentoring for PhD/postdoc projects, open forum discussion on glycobiotechnology challenges, scientific speed-dating for academics and industrialists. Newsletters and a website will provide links to resources, eg on-line tools in the social media and 'You-Tube' videos to bring glycoscience to the wider community. Proof of Concept Funds will support R+D projects, which will be focussed on strategic areas of glycobiotechnology and used to work up project ideas for applications for RCUK, Horizon 2020 and IBCatalyst Funding. Training courses, for academia and industry, will be feature of the network, providing a basic introduction in glycotechnology through advanced hands-on and theoretical training courses, as well as providing access to specialised facilities. A key element of IBCarb activities will be the development of a Glycoscience Roadmap, which will provide a strategic overview of the opportunities for carbohydrate IBBE. This will result in solicitation of targeted investment, the development of new technologies, processes and products, resulting is targeted investment and creating new commercial and job opportunities cross-sector. Building on our recent highly successful exhibit (Complex Life of Sugars) at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition 2013 (over 12,000 visitors), for outreach activities we will generate core components (experiment, films, videos) for an 'IBCarb roadshow', which will be used to promote opportunites to policy makes and the public.

Committee	Research Committee A (Animal disease, health and welfare)
Research Topics	Industrial Biotechnology, Synthetic Biology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	Networks in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBB) [2013]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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