PhotoRedesign
Project Info
- Name: Redesigning the Photosynthetic Light Reactions
- Registration Number: 854126
- Grant Provider: EU HORIZON 2020 - ERC Synergy Grant
- Period: 2020 - 2025
- Total Subsidity (€): 2 498 861,00
Project Partners
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich (Prof. Dr. Dario Leister, koordinátor)
- Mikrobiologický ústav AV ČR - Centrum ALGATECH Třeboň (Prof. Dr. Josef Komenda)
- University of Sheffield, Sheffield (Prof. Dr. C. Neil Hunter)
Project Leader for MBÚ AV ČR Třeboň
Project Description
The photochemical light reactions in oxygenic photosynthesis are performed by two large protein complexes termed photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII) that absorb photons and use their energy to generate a proton gradient and reducing power used to fix CO2. Various phototrophic organisms evolved diverse light-harvesting systems (antennas) to collect and transfer photon energy to the reaction centers of the photosystems. The overall efficiency of the light reactions (in terms of the fraction of incident solar energy converted into chemical energy) is only about 15% under field conditions, and only a fraction of this is then converted into biomass during CO2 fixation. Because their fundamental enhancement is not feasible by conventional approaches, there is an urgent need to develop novel concepts to redesign their light harvesting and photochemical capacity. The overall objective of the project is designing light reactions that can harvest and safely convert energy from an expanded solar spectrum by synthetic biology and adaptive laboratory evolution, combining photosystems from different organisms, and including de novo-designed antennas in reimagined photosystems.. More about the project here►
https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/magazine/erc-2019-synergy-grants-examples