Research

Hajo Kries is head of the department and investigates biosynthetic pathways for tailor-made natural product chemistry. Using mechanistic studies, novel high-throughput screening methods, and directed evolution, they aim to create designer peptide synthetases and enzymes for the biosynthesis of new molecules. Join us as we explore the future of synthetic biology and its promise for chemistry.

How does the sequence and structure of enzymes determine their biochemical function? How to design variants with increased stability, activity, selectivity, or an extended substrate profile? And how to find novel biocatalysts we desired catalytic activity? In tight collaboration with experimental groups, we combine two complementary computational approaches: we analyze the rapidly increasing sequence space of enzymes by data mining, and we explore complex enzyme-substrate-solvent systems by molecular dynamics simulations.