Doctoral network BiodeCCodiNNG granted

The team of Dörte Rother is part of a consortium that has now been granted a prestigious doctoral network. Together with nine academic partners from renowned European universities and supported by 10 companies, she is looking forward to working on the development of novel enzyme catalysed reactions over the next 3 years. Her project BiodeCCodiNNG has received funding from the European Commission. The consortium will decode chemical reactions from the largely unexplored family of N-N bond-forming enzymes, while tackling challenging reactions carried out by C-C bond-forming enzymes that are currently inaccessible.

The main goal of the BIODECCODINNG doctoral network is to train and educate Europe’s next 10 visionaries for a sustainable future on cuttingedge enzyme technology centered around N-N and C-C bond formations, and to tackle technology gaps, practical challenges, as well as to exploit synthetic opportunities with a huge innovation potential. The network is established by world-leading experts from European academic institutions and industrial partners that will together implement the training agenda. This setting provides strong interdisciplinary co-supervision and intersectoral exposure in secondments to the doctoral candidates, and bridges intersectoral and multidisciplinary boundaries across training in drug discovery, enzyme catalysis and process development.

Enzyme catalysis is an essential technology at the heart of industrial biotechnology, expected to foster the EU economic growth and industry leadership, while effectively addressing social, environmental, and economic needs. It improves the sustainability of chemical processes and gives rise to new reactivities for multi-functionalized product building. Traditional chemical methods for their synthesis are typically realized by costly and environmentally unfriendly processes. Expanding the toolbox of available biocatalysts enabling novel reactions not yet accessible with the existing enzymes is a formidable challenge, but will open exciting new avenues for applications in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.