Application of bioinformatic enzyme design and high-throughput in vitro coupled transcription translation to commercial enzyme discovery

This feasability study is designed to integrate two emerging technolgies – (1) Bioinformatics assisted design of novel enzyme characteristics, (2) Rapid in vitro screening of enzyme variants prior to expression in host microorganisms and subsequent commercial scale enzyme production. By using initial in vitro protein synthesis to test enzyme variants we will be able to initially circumvent the more usual cumbersome and time-consuming route of cloning each variant into a host organism, small-scale enzyme expression and purification and then subsequent enzyme characterisation. The success of this study will result in a novel platform for rapid commercial enzyme development that will place Biocatalysts Ltd at the cutting edge of this developmental technology.