The EvoSCO project, launched on Friday, April 19, 2024, through the conference “A look into the wonderful world of oleaginous microorganisms,” presented by researcher George Aggelis
On Friday, April 19, 2024, the Faculty of Biology of the University of Bucharest hosted the launch of the project “Adaptive evolution strategies in the laboratory for improving lipid accumulation in oil-producing microorganisms and the production of microbial oils using agro-industrial waste” (EvoSCO).
The event, attended by members of the academic community interested in the subject, students, researchers, and teachers, consisted of two parts. In the first part, researcher George Aggelis, professor at the University of Patras (Greece), gave a lecture entitled “A look into the wonderful world of oleaginous microorganisms,” followed by an intense question and answer session. The second part of the event consisted of the actual presentation of the EvoSCO project, its objectives, and its team.
As Professor George Aggelis, the project director, pointed out, the goal of EvoSCO is to develop adaptive evolution in the laboratory (EAL) strategies for generating hyperproductive oleaginous strains. To this end, the methodology will be developed and initially applied to Y. lipolytica strains, and then extended to other oil-producing microorganisms of industrial interest, with significant contributions to elucidating the molecular evolutionary mechanisms associated with lipogenesis.
Researcher George Aggelis is a professor in the Department of Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Patras (Greece). He is the coordinator of the EvoSCO project, thus becoming a member of the academic community of the University of Bucharest. More details about Professor George Aggelis’ work and publications can be found here.
The project “Adaptive evolution strategies in the laboratory for improving lipid accumulation in oil-producing microorganisms and the production of microbial oils using agro-industrial waste” (EvoSCO) will be implemented over a period of 2.5 years and is funded by Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Component C9 – Support for the private sector, research, development, and innovation, Investment 8 “Development of a program to attract highly specialized human resources from abroad in research, development, and innovation activities” PNRR-III-C9-2022 – I8, no. 760238 /28.12.2023, code PNRR/2023/C9/MCID/I8. CF 162/31.07.2023 with a budget of 5,999,998.14 lei.
International Microbiology Day 2024- ZIMDay
The results obtained so far have been discussed in numerous meetings with the Project Director, who discussed each protocol and experiment individually and provided bibliographic materials. These experimental results were also presented at the Conference dedicated to International Microbiology Day, which took place on September 19 between 9:45 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. at the Research Platform in Biology and Systemic Ecology, with guests from several countries, including Japan, Egypt, and Ecuador, and was conducted in English. Lecturer Dr. Viorica Corbu gave an oral presentation entitled Experimental design for implementing ALE on Y. lipolytica ACA-DC 50109 for enhanced lipid accumulation properties using glycerol Corbu V., Lascu I., Mihăiescu B., Csutak O., Ionescu R., Tanase A.M., Aggelis G. The presentation is available upon request. The table below shows the advertising methods used for the event under the auspices of FEMS (Federation of European Microbiological Societies) during which the presentation was held. Details about the event – https://unibuc.ro/conferinta-dedicata-zilei-internationale-a-microorganismelor-zim2024-ajunsa-la-a-iv-a-editie-organizata-la-facultatea-de-biologie-a-ub/