Discover the MIBIREM Project

MIBIREM is a collaborative European project across the fields of natural sciences, engineering and technology with 11 partners from 6 EU countries, funded under the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme.  The project brings together state-of-the-art microbiome science research centres with leading companies to take up the challenge of cleaning up Europe’s contaminated sites through microbiome-based soil bioremediation.

Hundreds of thousands of contaminated sites posing a significant risk to humans and the environment require innovative cleaning technologies, as conventional remediation is often too expensive and inefficient.

Biotechnological remediation employs the use of living organisms, mostly microbes and bacteria, in the removal of contaminants from the environment. The EU-funded MIBIREM project will develop a unique toolbox for highly efficient bioremediation environmental applications of microbiomes.

Through the MIBIREM toolbox, the project will provide innovative methods to use the potential of microbiomes in degrading contaminants in soil and groundwater. The project will develop molecular methods for the monitoring, isolation, cultivation and deposition of whole microbiomes.

The MIBIREM toolbox will also include methodology to improve microbiome functions, including evolution and enrichment. Improved microbiomes will then be tested under real field conditions in selected sites across Europe on cyanides, hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) and petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC).

With its toolbox, MIBIREM aims to pave the way for the long-term upscaling of microbiome-based bioremediation to benefit humans and the environment.

For more details on the project, visit the project website www.mibirem.eu.