Engineering a sugar aminotransferase for the sustainable production of high-value chiral compounds

The project will involve the development of a panel of enzymes with activity on renewable sugar substrates. These enzymes will be engineered to accept a wide range of sugars and convert them to valuable chiral compounds, which are extremely challenging to access using more traditional synthetic chemistry approaches.
The research will involve engineering enzymes to broaden their substrate scope and applying these designer biocatalysts for the synthesis of chiral molecules. The project is in collaboration with BASF who are interested in developing enzymes for synthetic applications.