Research
There is growing pressure within the chemical industry to reduce carbon emissions and improve life cycle assessment (LCA) of processes. Biocatalysis emerges as a preferred option due to high reaction rate, high specificity, biodegradability, nontoxicity, and reaction at mild conditions. Despite the recent efforts in repurposing natural enzymes and developing artificial enzymes, it remains a great challenge to expand the toolbox of biocatalysis. Our research interest is to design enzymes to access reaction space beyond the native biochemical landscape. These artificial biosynthetic machineries can solve longstanding synthetic challenges and provide insights into fundamental enzymology. Our research relies on the integration of synthetic chemistry, molecular biology, protein engineering, protein design, and biophysics.