- Plants projects in FP7-

SmartCell project

FP7 theme: Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Biotechnology

Call topic: KBBE-2007-3-1-09 GREEN FACTORY - The expression and accumulation of valuable industrial compounds in plants

Projects acronym: SmartCell
Start and ending date: 01/2009 - 12/2012

EU contribution: 5.9 M€

Name coordinator: Dr Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey
Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus (VTT)
Vuorimiehentie PO Box 1000
Finland
Tel: +358-20-7224459
Fax: +358-20-7227071
kirsi-marja.oksman[at]vtt.fi

Full title: Rational design of plant systems for sustainable generation of value-added industrial products

Large Collaborative Project

Plants sustainably produce low levels of secondary metabolites of high industrial value. However, they are often too complex to be economically manufactured by chemical synthesis. Advanced metabolic engineering and exploitation of plants as Green Factories has been prevented due to poorly understood metabolic pathways in plants and the regulation thereof. SmartCell brings together 14 leading European academic laboratories and four industrial partners in order to create a novel concept for rationally engineering plants towards improved economical production of high-value compounds for non-food industrial use.

Although SmartCell focuses on terpenoids, the largest class of secondary metabolites, which exhibit extremely diverse biological and pharmaceutical activities, all knowledge, tools and resources developed in the project, are generic and broadly applicable to engineer any plant biosynthetic pathway. A systems biology approach using metabolomics and transcriptomics is taken to move beyond the state of the art. New multigene transfer technologies are developed. By screening and functionally categorizing genes at structural, regulatory and transport levels a comprehensive knowledge base of how secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways operate in plants is developed. The case study component i.e. manufacturing a valuable terpenoid in an optimized large-scale system gives SmartCell a unique opportunity to directly make transition from fundamental science to application.

For long-term exploitation an integrated database, compound library, cell culture collection and a genebank available for academic and industrial communities will be established. SmartCell provides new opportunities for SMEs and established European biotech companies, and the technology can also be transferred to other e.g. fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. SmartCell will prove that plant-based resources can furnish the European society and industry far more than they presently do.

1- Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus, VTT (FI)
2- Universidad de lleida (ES)
3- Universiteir Leiden (NL)
4- Zurcher Hochschule fur Angewandte Wissenschaften (CH)
5- Franhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung E.V (DE)
6- The chancellor, masters and scholars of the University of Oxford (UK)
7- Kobenhavns University(DK)
8- Wageningen University (NL)
9- VIB (BE)
10- University of Zurich (CH)
11- Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften E.V. (DE)
12- Universite Catholique de Louvain (BE)
13- Centre national de la recherche Scientifique, CNRS (FR)
14- John Innes Centre (UK)
15- Dow Agrosciences, LLC (USA)
16- Philip Morris Products S.A. (CH)
17- Solucel Oy (FI)
18- Plant Advanced Technologies (FR)

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