Personal profile
Summary of Research Interests
Briefly:
-Enzyme and Protein Biotechnology
-Enzyme and Protein Discovery and Engineering for Biotechnology, Medical and Pharmaceutical Applications
In more words:
-Enzyme screening and discovery
-Enzyme/ protein engineering and directed evolution
-Enzyme/ protein biotechnology and applications
-Enzyme biochemistry
-Applied enzymology
-Biocatalysis & Biotransformation
-Industrial/ white biotechnology
-Glycoengineering for vaccine development
-Upstream and downstream processes (USP & DSP)
-Interested in biologically active compounds (BACs), naturally occurring proteins and enzymes with medical properties and Synthetic Biology
In details:
I have been working on biotechnology, biochemistry, engineering and the application of enzymes and proteins for the last 20 years:
- Both upstream and downstream of proteins and enzymes including:
- Enzyme screening and enzyme assays among microorganisms, plants and animals (and metagenome) for diagnosis and biocatalysis
- Enzyme and protein production employing native microbial isolates and diverse heterologous recombinant gene expressions (prokaryotic systems like E. coli, its cell-free system and Burkholderia cenocepacia as well as eukaryotic systems like Pichia pastoris, Wheat-germ cell-free and LEXSY)
- Enzyme/ protein purifications from the various microbial, plant, and animal (arthropods) sources (native and recombinant) using various chromatography systems
- Enzyme characterizations including substrate spectrum and biochemical kinetics
- Secondary structure analysis of wild-type versus mutant enzymes and proteins (using FT-IR, CD and Fluorescence spectroscopy)
- Engineering of various enzymes and proteins-Examples are mutagenesis and directed evolution of:
- HNLs have higher in vivo solubility in E. coli and for biocatalysis
- SerDHs for diagnosis/ as a biomarker
- Lipocalins in a glycoengineering project for vaccine development and diagnostic kit preparation
- Biocatalytic reactions using enzymes for the synthesis of pharmaceutical building blocks (main focus on HNLs and sugar-metabolising enzymes)
- Phosphorylated sugar nucleotide-metabolising enzyme from a hyperthermophilic microorganism, Sulfolobus tokodaii and discovery of a unique isomerase enzyme with high biotechnology potential- These enzymes make an end product in each pathway which is a substrate for glycosyltransferases (GTs). These enzymes can transfer the above product onto proteins: a connection with personalised medicine. Proteins with glycans on their structure behave differently...
In the news- Millipede Harbors Speedy Catalyst: A millipede enzyme makes valuable chiral building blocks for pharmaceuticals faster than its industrial counterparts
https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i32/Millipede-Harbors-Speedy-Catalyst.html
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