Consortium meeting of the ERA-IB project “funCHI” in Zwingenberg

This week, the consortium of our European Research Area - Industrial Biotechnology (ERA-IB) project “funCHI - Fungal Chitosans from Fermentation Mycelia for Plant Biostimulants” met at the premises of our German industrial partner WeissBioTech in Zwingenberg near Darmstadt. Our former doctoral and post-doctoral researcher Dr. Mareike Dirks-Hofmeister, now R&D project leader at WBT, was our host. Monday afternoon was devoted to progress reports of all partners, starting with Tim van Leeuwe, the doctoral student in Prof. Arthur Ram’s group at University of Leiden in the Netherlands, followed by our two recent doctors, Dr. Anna Niehues und Dr. Jasper Wattjes, then Dr. Nikolas Taylor from our host WBT, and finally Dr. Hugo Mélida from Prof. Antoni Molina’s group at University of Madrid in Spain. We were all impressed by the wealth of data that had accumulated since our last meeting only little more than half a year ago. The aim of our project was to develop a protocol for the easy extraction of a chitinous fraction from the spent mycelia of fungal fermentations performed for the biotechnological production of enzymes for e.g. food applications, and its enzymatic conversion into a potential plant biostimulant for agricultural applications. Concomitantly, the efficiency of the process was to be optimised by the development of novel fungal production strains with improved fermentation characteristics and higher chitin content or better chitin extractability. It had not quite seemed possible half a year ago, but we did it! Sure, further improvements are required for an economically viable industrial process - but these seem also possible. And sure, the efficacy of the chitinous biostimulant needs to be evaluated in crop plants and under field conditions - but we knew that this would be a task for a follow-up project. This is why Tuesday morning was devoted to plan the final months of the project, to draft the six or so manuscripts to be written, and to think about opportunities for a follow-up project.