Plants produce a highly diverse scala of natural molecules that have significant value in products used in daily life. These molecules, including aromatics, terpenoids, cannabinoids, and lipophilic molecules, are high value products and are currently extracted from plants or are chemically synthesized. Both methods negatively affect the environment, thus we need cost-effective, sustainable alternative production strategies. By genetically engineering microorganism as ‘cell factory’ these natural products can be synthesized more sustainably. However, plant derived natural products are toxic to these ‘cell factories’ and therefore a biotechnological alternative is not achievable.
NICy will produce market natural molecules, using a cost effective and sustainable production process. NICy will create ‘cell factories’ for the production of toxic plant derived products by precision strain engineering. Combined with innovative fermentation and extraction technologies, the ‘cell factories’ generated by NICy allow to synthesize highly toxic from basic starting materials in an extremely efficient and unique biotechnological process that easily outcompete the current plant extraction and chemical synthesis in sustainability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. The ultimate goal of NICy is to build a factory for the biosynthesis of toxic and lipophilic molecules.
