(96a) Engineering by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life
AIChE Annual Meeting
2020
2020 Virtual AIChE Annual Meeting
Liaison Functions
Presidential Lecture
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Not satisfied with biologyâs vast catalyst repertoire, I want to create new enzyme catalysts and expand the chemistry of life to include reactions that nature may not have explored. We use the powerful design process of the biological world, evolution, to optimize existing enzymes and invent new ones, thereby circumventing our profound ignorance of how sequence encodes function. Using mechanistic understanding and mimicking natureâs evolutionary engineering methods, we have generated whole families of new-to-nature enzymes. These capabilities increase the scope of molecules and materials we can build using synthetic biology and move us closer to a sustainable world where human-invented chemistry will be genetically encoded.