Fast, adaptable and cost-efficient enzyme discovery tools
Enzymes have been used in commercial consumer products such as detergents since the early 20th century. In recent years, there has been a push to discover new enzymes that could help Europe’s transition to greener and more sustainable modes of production. This is because enzymes have the potential to speed up industrial processes, while replacing fossil fuel-based synthetic chemicals across many industrial applications.
Platform to identify viable enzymes
This process of discovery however is not easy. It takes a great deal of time and money to identify viable enzymes, and to ensure their safe and effective application in processes or everyday consumer goods. This is the challenge that the EU-funded RADICALZ(opens in new window) project sought to address. “Enzymes are expensive to develop – companies focus a lot of time and resources here,” notes project coordinator Aurelio Hidalgo from the Autonomous University of Madrid(opens in new window) in Spain. “Our aim was to create a general platform that could be applied to a range of enzymes across different applications, to make the process cheaper and faster by orders of magnitude.” To ensure that the enzyme-assisted consumer products were fully circular, all potential feedstocks were derived from industrial waste streams. This included sucrose production, spent frying oils, dairy by-products and even tree bark. “In building a truly circular economy(opens in new window), we need to bear in mind where our raw materials come from,” adds Hidalgo. The project focused on end-use case studies including laundry products, nutraceuticals and cosmetics.
Enabling technologies including AI
The process itself harnesses enabling technologies such as AI to speed up the identification process. AI was combined with proprietary data from one of the project partners to make accurate and efficient predictions about the efficacy of certain enzymes in specific processes. The process also made use of microfluidics, which is about manipulating fluids at the micrometric scale. “What this means in practice is that we were able to reduce volumes by factors of thousands,” says Hidalgo. “This has huge cost implications, because it meant we could carry out a million assays in a few hours for, say, 10 euro.” By using microscopic droplets as test tubes, the project’s need for plastic was reduced. Sustainability assessments were then carried out, from raw material sourcing right through to disposal. “We identified a knowledge gap here, so we developed new, universal and easy equations for this task,” explains Hidalgo.
Discovering the power of enzymes
Using the pioneering platform, the project team was able to synthesise 27 new ingredients, which could be used instead of synthetic chemicals in a range of consumer products. Patents have been secured by industrial project partners. Miniature droplets were also used as scaffolds to develop microcapsules for ingredients. The idea here is that enzyme function is preserved until it is needed. “Simply being able to demonstrate the viability of these processes could lead to new investment,” says Hidalgo. The project shared its results in policy briefs and academic publications but also focused on children as the consumers of the future. A comic book was developed for kids aged 8 to 12, while a digital escape room was targeted at secondary school students. The goal of this was to solve puzzles and discover the power of enzymes. Finally, a Spring School in Madrid was organised to bring early-stage researchers together with leading experts from academia and industry, and to discuss insights from RADICALZ, as well as fellow EU-funded projects OXIPRO, EnXylaScope and FuturEnzyme.
