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Otzen Group

Research Summary

CoCa-PepSyMax: Carbon dioxide capture via chains of amino acids


Grant: 2.14 MDKK for 2 years
Professor Daniel Otzen, Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center, Aarhus University
Professor Peter Westh, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark 

Peter Westh is a professor in enzymology specializing in enzyme engineering, and Daniel Otzen is a professor in molecular biology and biotechnology specializing in proteins. Together, they propose to study how selected protein structures can be utilized to generate specific peptide complexes that can efficiently capture CO2.

“Bacteria naturally produce self-organized protein assemblies, which we will modify to display reversible CO2-binding peptide motifs,” the two professors explain in their proposal.

Their project, CoCa-PepSyMax, aims to establish a “CO2-binding peptide grammar” and apply it to develop a microbial-based and abundantly available capture and release system for CO2.