High-Throughput Absorbance-Activated Droplet Sorting for Engineering Aldehyde Dehydrogenases.

Recent decades have seen a dramatic increase in the commercial use of biocatalysts, transitioning from energy-intensive traditional chemistries to more sustainable methods. Current enzyme engineering techniques, such as directed evolution, require the generation and testing of large mutant libraries to identify optimized variants. Unfortunately, conventional screening methods are unable to screen such large libraries in a robust and timely manner.

Development of a Highly Selective NAD -Dependent Glyceraldehyde Dehydrogenase and its Application in Minimal Cell-Free Enzyme Cascades.

Anthropogenic climate change has been caused by over-exploitation of fossil fuels and CO emissions. To counteract this, the chemical industry has shifted its focus to sustainable chemical production and the valorization of renewable resources. However, the biggest challenges in biomanufacturing are technical efficiency and profitability.

Cell-free enzyme cascades - application and transition from development to industrial implementation.

In the vision to realize a circular economy aiming for net carbon neutrality or even negativity, cell-free bioconversion of sustainable and renewable resources emerged as a promising strategy. The potential of in vitro systems is enormous, delivering technological, ecological, and ethical added values. Innovative concepts arose in cell-free enzymatic conversions to reduce process waste production and preserve fossil resources, as well as to redirect and assimilate released industrial pollutions back into the production cycle again.