Enzymes - Precision Tools of Life

Metabolic pathways of living organisms are highly diverse and adaptable entailing development of a multitude of catalytic active biomolecules. Their technological use has gained considerable socio-economic importance in context with sustainable production and activation of renewable resources. Nevertheless, only few biocatalysts are actually in technical use today. Restrictions lie in the special edge conditions of technical systems such as non-aqueous media, multiple phases or shear forces, and in the still limited molecular understanding of biocatalytic activity.

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From Enzyme to Biocatalyst

Highlights

The diversity of enzymes and enzyme-catalyzed reactions is tremendous and not fully explored to date. Identification and functional description of novel enzymes extent the accessible range of biocatalysts and help determining potential and limits of biocatalysis for technical use.

Projects

The catalytic activity of enzymes is strongly related to molecular properties. Analysis of structural features and processes and subsequent directed manipulation produces enzyme variants with higher stability, selectivity, efficiency or new/extended application range.

Publications

We publish research results regularly in established international journals for biological, chemical and engineering sciences. We also contribute expert articles to monographs and textbooks.

Research target

Identification, manipulation and preparation of technically relevant enzymes essentially unlock new horizons in biocatalysis. Bioinspired approaches for provision of powerful technical biocatalysts and catalytic networks are developed through analysis of activity, selectivity and stability under conditions relevant for application and determination of reasons for the observed behavior with biochemical, molecular biological and bioinformatics methods.