Deborah Boes, PhD student at TU Delft

My name is Deborah Boes and I am a PhD student in the group of Peter-Leon Hagedoorn. I have a background in Biocatalysis and immunology by obtaining a double master degree Life Science and Technology at the TU Delft and Leiden University. After that I have worked for a year in industry, where I focused on differentiating human iPSCs into other cells types, before I started my PhD at TU Delft.

Within the W-BioCat project, my research focuses on expressing tungsten-containing enzymes in an industrial workhorse micro-organism, such as E. coli, to be able to produce these enzymes on a large scale. This requires overcoming several bottlenecks in the biosynthesis of the W-cofactor.

Rob Schmitz, Postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft

Rob Schmitz, postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology, is fascinated by microorganisms and their enzymes and aims to apply them in #sustainable ways.

In November 2021, he obtained his PhD from Radboud University on the metabolism of extremely acidophilic methane-oxidizing bacteria. Hereafter, he worked for two years as a postdoc at ETH Zürich (Switzerland), where he investigated microbial turnover of carbon in peat soil.

Recently, he took up a postdoctoral project within the W-BioCat consortium. This project focuses on the cultivation of an amazing and extreme #microorganism that grows optimally at the temperature at which water boils. This microorganism harbours tungsten-containing enzymes that #catalyse all kinds of fascinating reactions that can be used to make the chemical industry more sustainable.

In the project, he will thoroughly study and characterize these enzymes to grasp their functioning, which will render valuable information needed to apply these enzymes on a large industrial scale.

Peter-Leon Hagedoorn’s group

Peter-Leon Hagedoorn’s group at Delft University of Technology, focuses on the elucidation of reaction mechanisms of (metallo-)enzymes containing heme, Fe-S clusters and/or W/Mo cofactors. We use microsecond timescale rapid mixing techniques, unique in the world, employed in a continuous flow UV-vis spectrophotometric device called Nanospec, and a rapid freeze hyperquench device called MHQ.

These techniques are circa 100 times faster than commercial instruments, and both techniques have been very powerful in the discovery of novel transient intermediates in the heme enzyme chlorite dismutase and Cu2+ binding to ATCUN/NTS motif peptides. In recent years Hagedoorn ventured together with prof. Hanefeld into enzyme immobilization and flow biocatalysis using Mn2+ dependent aldolases and hydroxynitrile lyases as well as thermophilic glycosyl transferases and hydratases (including FeS cluster containing enzymes).

Within the W-BioCat project, our focus is on the recombinant expression and characterization of W-containing aldehyde oxidoreductases (AORs). Heterologous expression of W-enzymes is challenging due to the requirement of an efficient W-cofactor biosynthesis pathway. The W-BioCat strains developed in this project will enable expression of new W-enzymes from genetic databases, and facilitate production of new engineered W-enzymes.