RADOV proposal coordinated by the INCT and submitted to the Euratom Horizon Europe Innovation Action call has been approved for funding. The Grant Agreement (No 101061694) was signed by the partners and European Commission at the end of the June. Proposal entitled “RADiation harvesting of bioactive peptides from egg prOteins and their integration in adVanced functional products (RADOV)” was submitted to the call Nuclear Research and Training (topic “Cross-sectoral synergies and new applications of nuclear technologies”) which was opened in July, 2021.
RADOV moves from the well-established radiation process applications in food irradiation for disinfection and shelf-life increase, and from several decades of fundamental studies of the biological effects of radiation in vivo, to explore completely new routes for the production of bioactive peptides from egg proteins based on radiation-induced fragmentation, and new product prototypes that incorporate egg protein-derived peptides. High energy radiation from electron accelerators will be used to produce peptides and the collection of the results acquired regarding the peptide structure, irradiation conditions, and related bioactivity properties will be one vital output of the project. To expand the application of ionizing radiation and to demonstrate the broad scope of its applications, new products containing bioactive proteins/peptides will be designed and developed with the use of electron beam irradiation to manufacture them. In particular, two target products will be developed as demonstrators of egg-derived bioactive peptides by radiation-induced fragmentation: peptide-laden antimicrobial/antioxidant hydrogel wound dressings and peptide-grafted active food packaging film.
The project will be coordinated by Dr Dagmara Chmielewska-Śmietanko. Interdisciplinary team of researchers from 6 scientific institutions is involved in the projects:
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden)
- University of Palermo (Italy)
- Italian National Research Council (Italy)
- University of Huddersfield (UK)
- The Association of Instituto Superior Técnico for Research and Development (Portugal)
While the projects focus on closer-to-the-market activities including prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting and scaling-up for new or improved products strong involvement of three industrial partners:
- KIKGEL Sp. z o.o. (Poland)
- DEKOFILM POLSKA SP. Z O.O. (Poland)
- E.P.S. S.p.A. Egg Powder Specialists (Italy)
is crucial for the successful project implementation.
The project duration is 4 years beginning from the 1st of the September, 2022. Total budget of the RADOV project is 2 M € including 1.86 M€ EC contribution.
