Design and characterisation of large-scale biocatalyst panels

The engineering and production of enzymes is one of the key areas of impact of synthetic biology. Enzymes are biocatalytic tools that not only are renewable but also can be more efficient than conventional chemical engineering approaches. To find suitable enzymes we can leverage current abilities of microorganisms to naturally produce enzymes that already catalyse the target substrate. The challenge lies in developing an automated cell-free workflow to rapidly screen the enzyme activity.

In this talk, I will introduce a new approach to enzyme screening based on network analysis of protein families derived from metagenomics datasets. I will discuss why it is essential to maximise the diversity of enzymes, and describe how the use of lab robotics, such as Echo 525 or Opterons OT-2, can speed up the screening process.