Biocatalysis multinationals such as GlaxoSmithKline plc, AstraZeneca, Givaudan, Roche, Firmenich, and L’Oréal will present at the conference alongside academic innovators, including, Uwe Bornscheuer, Donald Hilvert, Manfred Reetz, and many more…
The European Protein Engineering Congress is the first biocatalysis conference to take place within the EU with the prime focus being the engineering, optimization, and discovery of novel enzymes and molecules not found in nature for industrial applications.
With the last century of biotransformation being dominated by chemical production, the field is ready to embrace biocatalysis industrially, in both scale and practice. It’s true that enzymes found in nature aren’t suitable for industrial applications, and protein engineering applied to a biocatalyst comes with an array of advantages; reaction process can be made greener and more economically viable, enzymes can become more thermostable, specific, and potent for longer amounts of time, and most importantly, engineered enzymes expands the catalogue of valuable molecules and products we’re able to synthesize.
Last year, Dr Frances Arnold received the 2018 chemistry Nobel prize for putting the power of evolution into chemists’ hands, and recognised for her invention of directed enzyme evolution – combining nature’s sophisticated machinery with modern laboratory tools to design enzymes capable of catalysing commercially viable reactions. The breakthrough of Arnolds’ pioneering method allowed industry to embrace and take notice of protein engineering and its applications in a variety of sectors; pharmaceutical, flavour & fragrance, detergents and cosmetics, paper & pulp, even plastic waste management – the list goes on.
At the European Protein Engineering Congress, we have gathered leading industry members and academics alike, to discuss and present case studies within this exciting and developing field. Case studies to be discussed include GlaxoSmithKline’s Doru Roiban, on how directed evolution is allowing them to continue to innovate API manufacture, and produce new enzyme functions. Firmenich’s Daniel Solis-Escalante will speak on how they approach pathway discovery for the production of new flavour & fragrance ingredients, and L’Oréal’s Julien Hitce and Pfizer’s Jeremy Steflik will cover how enzymes and the implementation of green chemistry is allowing them to create more sustainable products, reduce waste, and make reaction processes more efficient.
A major driver in the formation of the protein engineering field is the increasing number of biotechs spinning out from academic institutions, and partnering with large multinational companies; earlier this year leading protein engineering company Codexis, Inc announced the signing of a CodeEvolver® platform agreement with Novartis, where Codexis has granted a non-exclusive license to its proprietary CodeEvolver® protein engineering platform technology to Novartis to develop novel performance enzymes for use in manufacturing pharmaceutical products. This is just one of many partnerships between innovative service providers and large organizations as we enter the 4th wave of biocatalysis, an era set to take the field by storm in 2020 and beyond.
The European Protein Engineering Congress aims to uncover the new and emerging practices, techniques, and methods of protein engineering that are being used right now to discover, engineer, and optimize enzymes and molecules not found in nature for industrial applications.
To find out more, visit https://go.kisacoresearch.com/l/678123/2019-10-10/qdnl
Press contact for Protein Engineering EU:
Maria McSorley
Marketing Manager, Kisaco Research
Maria.McSorley@kisacoresearch.com
+44 (0)203 696 0796