Valorisation of agricultural waste: Accesing and developing biomass subproducts for drug design

Sustainability is a major concern worldwide, resulting in the launch of Bioeconomy as a global strategy with trillions of euros invested in waste valorisation policies.

Agricultural waste is rich in terpenes, a class of organic molecules that can be used as chemical feedstocks for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, contributing to a circular bioeconomy scheme through reduce, reuse and recycle.

Waste2Drug will contribute to the agriwaste valorisation in two ways; first, it will focus on the valorisation of the terpene-derived p-isopropyltoluene (commonly known as p-cymene), through its pharmaceutical development as a potent anticancer agent, by identifying its biological target and optimizing its anticancer activity.

In parallel, Waste2Drug will contribute to the optimization of the p-cymene access from terpene-rich biomass, through theoretical investigation of the terpene deoxydehydration reaction that will aid the development of a more efficient catalytic procedure.

The theoretical insights provided by the researcher will be used by synthetic chemists first on model molecules and then on actual agriwaste.

The fellowship will be carried out at NovaMechanics Ltd (NvM), under the supervision of Dr Andreas Afantitis (AA), while a secondment will take place in the University of Burgos (UBU), under the supervision of Prof. Roberto Sanz Diez (RSD).

The researcher, Dr Sofia Kiriakidi, will lead the computational line of the project, while gaining valuable experience in terms of leadership and project management, by collaborating with experimental scientists and coordinating this multidisciplinary approach.

Waste2Drug connects theory to experiment, academia to industry and promotes the EU Bioeconomy strategy by both developing anticancer agents based on p-cymene and by facilitating its access from biomass terpenes, converting agricultural waste to novel drug molecules.