Novel enzymatic modifications of polysaccharides for new health and personal care products

In this interdisciplinary project, we propose to use 'omics technologies, bioinformatics and molecular biology to discover highly performing chitin/chitosan transforming enzymes to provide 'natural' materials with improved material properties further widening their use as inherently sustainable home product additives. The student will undertake experiments to produce recombinant forms of these enzymes using state of the art bacterial and yeast expression systems. Target proteins will be studied for their biochemical action on chitin/chitosan and how these adapt their material properties in collaboration with Prof Justin Perry in the Department of Applied Sciences at Northumbria University, Newcastle.