In the NP-hard Longest Common Subsequence problem (LCS), given a set of strings, the task is to find a string that can be obtained from every input string using as few deletions as possible. LCS is one of the most fundamental string problems with numerous applications in various areas, having gained a lot of attention in the algorithms and complexity research community. Significantly improving on an algorithm by Irving and Fraser [CPM'92], featured as a research challenge in a 2014 survey paper, we show that LCS is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) when parameterized by the maximum number of deletions per input string. Given the relatively moderate running time of our algorithm (linear time when the parameter is a constant) and small parameter values to be expected in several applications, we believe that our purely theoretical analysis could finally pave the way to a new, exact and practically useful algorithm for this notoriously hard string problem.

BACterial Hosts for production of Bioactive phenolics from bERRY fruits (BacHBerry) was a 3-year project funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union that ran between November 2013 and October 2016. The overall aim of the project was to establish a sustainable and economically-feasible strategy for the production of novel high-value phenolic compounds isolated from berry fruits using bacterial platforms. The project aimed at covering all stages of the discovery and pre-commercialization process, including berry collection, screening and characterization of their bioactive components, identification and functional characterization of the corresponding biosynthetic pathways, and construction of Gram-positive bacterial cell factories producing phenolic compounds. Further activities included optimization of polyphenol extraction methods from bacterial cultures, scale-up of production by fermentation up to pilot scale, as well as societal and economic analyses of the processes. This review article summarizes some of the key findings obtained throughout the duration of the project.