Gijsje Koenderink of the Bionanoscience Department of TU Delft received an OTP grant from NWO-TTW, together with Jean Marc Daran of the Biotechnology Department of TU Delft. The grant entitled SUSTAINER: Sustainable production of structural proteins for medical and nutritional applications’ aims at the production of extracellular matrix-mimicking biomaterials suitable as cell scaffolds. Current biomaterials are mainly made from animal-derived proteins, limiting their customizability and raising environmental, health and cultural concerns. This project brings together synthetic biologists, materials scientists and companies active in food and biomedical technology with the aim to generate microbial cell factories based on yeast capable of the sustainable, low CO2-footprint production of natural and engineered structural proteins. The proteins will be used to engineer biomaterials enhanced with cell-instructive cues and test them as cell scaffolds for soft tissue repair and cell-based meat production.
Link: https://www.nwo.nl/en/news/six-projects-start-through-open-technology-programme
