Richard McLean, PostDoctoral researcher at Weizmann Institue

I am Richard McLean and my primary interest lies at the blurry line between metabolism and abiotic organic chemistry and using enzyme engineering to expand that overlap as much as possible. I completed my doctoral work on the Hydroxypropionyl-CoA/Acrylyl-CoA (HOPAC) Cycle in the Erb Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in 2022 and joined the Fleishman Lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science as a postdoctoral fellow in 2023. Within the W-BioCat consortium, my project will center on improving the expressibility of the 𝘗𝘺𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘶𝘴 Wco biosynthetic pathway in 𝘌.𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪, and further work with the Wco-containing aldehyde oxidoreductases.

#enzymes #biotechnology #biocatalytic #sustainable #proteinengineering

European Congress on Biotechnology 2024

📢Are you taking part in the European Congress on Biotechnology #ECB2024 that will take place from 30 June to 3 July in Rotterdam, the Netherlands? W-BioCat partners will do and will present several posters about their progress on the project. Don’t miss out this opportunity to know more about it!

For further information about the congress 👉 https://www.ecb2024.com/

#EICPathfinder #ECB2024 #BiotechCongress #Biotechnology #tungsten #enzymes #biocatalysis

Alice Pedroni, PhD student at TU Delft

👩‍🔬 I'm Alice Pedroni, a PhD student at TU Delft who will be working on W-enzymes in the research group of Frank Hollmann and Caroline E. Paul. My background is mainly in chemistry, but enzymes have always amazed me with their ability to perform chemically challenging reactions under mild conditions.

💡 Currently, industry doesn't use enzymes to convert carboxylic acids to aldehydes and alcohols because the naturally occurring enzymes require expensive co-substrates such as ATP and NADPH. However, the existence of W-enzymes, which can carry out this conversion efficiently using H2 as an energy source, opens up possibilities for various applications, such as the reduction of CO2 to formic acid or the conversion of benzene derivatives. By using these enzymes with hydrogen power, it's possible to create a process that converts waste materials into useful compounds such as alcohols and aldehydes for cosmetics and flavours.

🔬 Within the W-BioCat project, I will investigate the biocatalytic potential of these W-enzymes. The substrate scope will be systematically characterised to identify the optimal reaction conditions for each substrate and for further scale-up. In addition, new substrates and new reactions catalysed by W-enzymes will be identified to increase their versatility in biotechnological applications.