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Connectivity
| Project leader |
Nikolic Nela |
| Project co-leader: |
Prof. Ivo F. Sbalzarini |
| Administering organization: |
Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences (MedILS)
Meštrovićevo šetalište b.b.
HR-21000 Split, Croatia
www.medils.hr
contact person: Boris Januška, managing director
boris.januska@medils.hr , +385 21 555 606 |
| Partner Institution/Company: |
ETH – Zurich, Computational Biophysics Lab |
| Grant type: |
2A |
| Project title: |
Adaptation of the metabolic pathways to diverse environmental conditions |
| Project summary: |
Understanding and characterizing life as a physical phenomenon has to start by probing its
limits. In this project, we focus on microorganisms such as bacteria and archaea. During
natural evolution, they have adapted to a stunning variety of habitats. Among the naturally
occurring species, we can thus find some that live under extreme conditions (e.g. temperature,
pressure, salt), where most other organisms would not be able to grow or reproduce.
Furthermore, habitats are characterized by different concentrations of organic and inorganic
substances and diverse composition of mini-atmosphere that characterizes specific habitat,
i.e. chemical composition of a habitat.
Our central aim is to define the properties of a proteome which would be common to
organisms with the same metabolic pathways, in order to be able to design a microorganism
with specific metabolic properties. In addition, we aim to describe the properties of metabolic
pathways in the framework of the environmental niche in which it has arisen as a
consequence of adaptive evolution. We intend to address this problem by using machine
learning techniques.
Computational Biophysics Lab on the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology is well known for
proficiency for applying machine learning in biology and, therefore, excellent collaborator for
this project. |
| Hrvatski sažetak: |
Iz dana u dan, otkriva se sve više činjenica o postojanju života na mjestima koja su se do nedavno činila nemogućima za ikakav oblik života. U sklopu ovog projekta, usredotočavamo se na mikroorganizme - bakterije i arheje - koji su se tijekom prirodne evolucije uspjeli prilagoditi na život u zadivljujuće raznolikom tipu staništa. To podrazumijeva i okoliš u kojem vladaju ekstremni uvjeti temperature, tlaka i soli, gdje većina drugih organizama nije sposobna rasti i razmnožavati se.
Nadalje, staništa su također okarakterizirana različitim koncentracijama organskih i anorganskih spojeva te posebnim sastavom mini-atmosfere specifične za svako stanište (kemijski sastav staništa). Da bi se prilagodio na kemijske uvjete okoliša, organizam razvija posebne metaboličke puteve kao posljedicu adaptivne evolucije.
Naš glavni cilj je definirati svojstva proteoma zajednička organizmima s istim metaboličkim putevima da bi bili u mogućnosti dizajnirati mikroorganizam s točno određenim metabolizmom. Također, želimo povezati svojstva metaboličkih puteva određene vrste s ekološkom nišom u kojoj živi. Odgovore na ova pitanja namjeravamo dobiti uporabom tehnika strojnog učenja.
Laboratorij računarske biofizike na Švicarskom federalnom tehnološkom institutu je vrlo poznat po stručnosti u primjeni metoda strojnog učenja u biologiji i, stoga, izvrstan suradnik za ovaj projekt.
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| Amount requested from UKF: |
6.980 € |
| Amount of matching funding: |
1.775 € |
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