When ten bright minds come together for two full days, innovation is bound to prosper!
The first AIMMS hackathon revolved all around finding alternative protein sources for the food industry. Plant-based protein substrates contain off-flavors and so-called antinutritional factors – nasty compounds. Fermentation by microbes is one approach that the food industry uses to improve the quality of plant-based products, but it is completely trial-and-error. In AIMMS, we can combine chemistry and biology, and computation and experiments, to understand the biochemistry of the bioconversions. This will allow more rational approaches for selecting enzymes and species for the fermentation process.
Ten early career researchers had a lot of fun hacking databases, inventing (high throughput) assays for functionality and toxicity testing, and developing research strategies for a research proposal that we are going to submit together with industrial partners and academics from Delft and Wageningen. The participants were chosen based on relevant experience and motivation, resulting in a selection of excellent PhDs and PostDocs from different backgrounds. Celebrating AIMMS’ interdisciplinarity.
Special thanks to the following sponsors:
Challenge leaders
Highlighted Results
- Overview of current knowledge of enzymology of flavour chemistry
- Detailed experimental and computational workflows how to increase our biochemical knowledge of plant fermentation processes
- Novel ideas for high-throughput assays for protein functionality such as gelation or emulsification
AIMMS Expertise covered
- Phage therapy
- Vaccin development
- Epidiology
- Novel drugs
- Tuberculosis
- Antifungals
- Antibiotic resistance
- Dormancy
