(451f) Successful Application of Computational Tools to the Design of Industrial Enzymes and Metabolic Pathways for the Production of Novel Molecules and Materials

The recent emergence of industrial and synthetic biotechnology has the potential to radically transform how we synthesize and produce chemicals. As explained by E.J. Corey’s Nobel in Chemistry lecture, one of the main driving forces behind the great variety of compounds manufactured by chemists since the 50s has been advances in synthetic chemistry approaches, especially retrosynthetic techniques that starting from a desired compound propose multiple synthetic pathways from known intermediates. Rapidly investigating a large variety of retrosynthetic pathways is fundamental to synthetic biology.  To this end, Arzeda has developed a computational pathway prospecting tool that can enumerate all possible enzyme pathways from a given starting molecule to a compound of interest- using existing and novel enzyme activities.  In addition to and complementary to the pathway tool, Arzeda’s proprietary technology includes novel computational methods to rationally engineer enzymes with a wide range of activities using known catalytic mechanisms for non-native substrates all the way to de novo catalytic machineries.  Taken together Arzeda’s computational techniques enable elegant synthetic biology solution to some of the most difficult small molecule synthesis problems.