NSF Award
9561842
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will identify new enzymes from thermophilic organisms suitable as stable off the shelf reagents for selectively and mildly installing chiral centers from corresponding carbonyl groups. There is great need in the chemical industry to develop catalytic methods capable of efficiently converting molecules to products without generating excessive waste streams or emissions. Molecular conservation methods based on biocatalyst reagents, such as dehydrogenase enzymes, offer opportunities to solve the challenges associated in industrial scale synthesis. Current dehydrogenase based technology is limited by the few available enzymes that have narrow substrate specificities, stabilities or yield a single type of stereocenter for application on large scale. New dehydrogenase enzymes need to be developed in order to increase the chemo- and stereoselectivity of different substrates from that which is currently available. Preliminary results indicate that dehydrogenases may be present in a number of extreme thermophiles that will be further investigated. Dehydrogenases have been identified as useful biocatalysts for chemical synthesis applications, particularly in the reduction of carbonyl groups to alcohols. They allow simplification of reactions that are difficult by traditional synthetic methodology. The highly stable biocatalysts that the firm proposes to develop will add a variety of new dehydrogenase specificities to the synthetic chemist's toolbox.
