The chemical and pharmaceutical industries are currently reliant on petrochemical derived intermediates for the synthesis of a wide range of valuable chemicals, materials and medicines. Decreasing petrochemical reserves, and concerns over increasing cost and greenhouse gas emissions, are now driving the search for renewable and environmentally friendly sources of these critically needed compounds. This project aims to establish a range of new manufacturing technologies for efficient conversion of biomass in agricultural waste streams into sustainable sources of these valuable chemical intermediates. The UK Committee on Climate Change (2018) has highlighted the importance of the efficient use of agricultural biomass in tackling climate change. The work undertaken in this project will contribute to this effort and help the UK government achieve its stated target of 'net-zero emissions' by 2050. The new approaches will be exemplified using UK-sourced Sugar Beet Pulp (SBP) a renewable resource in which the UK is self-sufficient. Over 8 million tonnes of sugar beet is grown annually in the UK on over 3500 farms concentrated in East Anglia and the East Midlands. After harvest, the beet is transported to a small number of advanced biorefineries to extract the main product; the sucrose we find in table sugar. SBP is the lignocellulosic material left after sucrose extraction. Currently it is dried (requiring energy input) and then sold as a low-value animal feed. SBP is primarily composed of two, naturally occurring, biological polymers; cellulose and pectin. Efficient utilisation of this biomass waste stream demands that applications are found for both of these. This work will establish the use of the cellulose nanofibres for making antimicrobial coatings and 3D-printed scaffolds (in which cells can be cultured for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications). The pectin will be broken down into its two main components: L-arabinose and D-galacturonic acid. The L-arabinose can be used directly as a low-calorie sweetener to combat the growing problem of obesity. The D-galacturonic acid will be modified in order to allow formation of biodegradable polymers which have a wide range of applications. This new ability to convert SBP into a range of useful food, chemical and healthcare products is expected to bring significant social, economic and environmental benefits. In conducting this research we will adopt a holistic approach to the design of integrated biorefineries in which these new technologies will be implemented. Computer-based modelling tools will be used to assess the efficiency of raw material, water and energy utilisation. Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) approaches will be employed to identify the most cost-effective and environmentally benign product and process combinations for potential commercialisation. The results will be widely disseminated to facilitate public engagement with the research and ethical evaluation. In this way the work will support the UK in its transition to a low-carbon, bio-based circular economy.

We use a technique called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (NMR) to study the structure of biomolecules that form the intricate machinery of cells and organisms. Their structure determines how they work and interact with each other and forms the basis of considerable human effort in understanding cutting edge bioscience. We are proposing to purchase the world's first TXO-HF NMR cryogenic probe technology and use it to make ground-breaking discoveries in areas such as neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's disease, design the structure of new biomolecules, or the production of antiviral, antibiotic and antifungal compounds. We can also use this new NMR data to design or repurpose drugs to make them more potent and even look at what happens to next generation drugs when your body tries to metabolise them. We have already identified >£30m of funded research programs, national collaborations and doctoral training programs that this instrument will underpin from day one, and we are working with a range of national networks who will allow us to increase this substantially over the lifetime of the NMR instrument. The new probe will enable this research because NMR shares the same basic ideas as the whole-body MRI scanners that are found in hospitals. However when studying molecules in bioscience, it is difficult to get enough sample to detect with our NMR spectrometer and the 'standard' atomic nucleus that MRI studies (the proton), tends to be so abundant that it gives very 'noisy' spectra with too many signals for us to be able to interpret. The solution to these problems is to use an NMR 'cryoprobe' that has very sensitive detection and is optimised to look at other types of atomic nuclei that tend to give more spread-out signals. Some NMR systems have started to use carbon and nitrogen nuclei, but what makes this TXO-HF system we are going to install especially powerful is that it can also use a further nucleus, fluorine, that is uniquely powerful as a probe because it is rare in most natural systems. This means we can use cutting-edge biosynthetic techniques to introduce fluorine into the molecules we study and then follow it's behaviour without all of the background noise that is found with proton-based NMR and thus study some very difficult problems in biology. There are many more important and complex scientific questions to answer with this new equipment and to do this we have teamed up with many partner universities, national NMR network programs and biopharmaceutical companies. By bringing all of these different groups together we are ensuring we maximise the number of people and have a broad expertise that can be applied to the scientific challenges we face. As the national picture of how universities work together evolves, sharing (expensive!) unique and sophisticated equipment like this becomes ever more important. Therefore part of what we are seeking to do with this equipment is use it as an exemplar to encourage collaboration and training for our skilled research technical professionals who run these instruments, as well as to inspire the students who themselves will go on to be the bioscience researchers and NMR spectroscopists of the future. To do this we have engaged with a dedicated team who champion this idea and through which we hope to make the equipment even more impactful and sustainable.