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Biopolymer production from sustainable feedstock
Biopolymer production from sustainable feedstock
Plastics are lightweight, durable and flexible. They help to preserve and protect goods and reduce weight in transportation. Other than packaging, it is also used in the construction industry, for examples in piping and conduits, claddings, insulations and seals. In the electrical and electronic sector, plastics enables freedom of design and provides for heat and electrical insulation.
Our team looks at the production of biodegradable and compostable biopolymer from sustainable feedstock, particularly the production of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) from industrial and agricultural wastes and carbon dioxide. Together with research partners, we apply techniques in protein engineering, strain engineering and fermentation to tackle the challenges in biopolymer production.
Enzymatic recycling – closing the loop in a circular plastics economy
Enzymatic recycling – closing the loop in a circular plastics economy
Biodegradable or compostable plastics like polyesters offer a new end-of-life management option – depolymerizing into monomeric building blocks for re-synthesis into new material. Extracellular microbial hydrolases are known to hydrolyse the ester linkages in polyesters like PLA and PBS. However, the catalytic efficiency of most of these enzymes are too low for industrial application, requiring days or even weeks for biopolymer degradation. Protein engineering is a robust technique for improving enzyme performance.
Bacterial protein secretion
Bacterial protein secretion
Gram-negative bacteria like Escherichia coli are the workhorse in many biotechnological applications, including protein production. Extracellular protein secretion is a useful tool in protein production as it can increase product purity in cell culture, decrease downstream processing requirements and cost as well as enable facile protein detection. We identify protein secretion systems for Gram-negative bacteria, improve their performances using protein engineering techniques and apply them in different biotechnological applications.
Protein engineering for industrial applications
Protein engineering for industrial applications
Protein engineering is process that can be used to develop useful and valuable proteins for industrial applications. It is one of our core expertise and protein properties that can be enhanced include catalytic performance, substrate specificity, temperature tolerance etc. Our team is interested in using protein engineering to study and improve enzymes used in bioenergy production, food and feed, detergent and personal care.
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