Biocatalysis and Biotransformations

Dear Colleagues,

The end of the twentieth century has experienced a revolution in the life sciences and, specifically, in biocatalysis. In this sense, the relation between chemistry, biology and microbiology is currently under a deep transformation influenced by new technologies that included synthetic biology and micro-cultivation for whole-cell design and isolation, next generation sequencing and so-called OMIC technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) for the discovery of biocatalysts and their functions, modern protein engineering technologies and protein design algorithms, and combinatorial and rational methods to generate new materials with which stabilized biocatalysts. Through a series of reactions, biocatalysts can be used for the economic and sustainable production of highly valuable customized and functionalized chemicals or materials. At this end, the final catalytic properties of a biocatalyst will be mainly the result of substrate arrangement in its active site driven by its polypeptide sequence and structure, and the influence that the engineering, immobilization or design process additionally exerts. In case of whole cells biocatalysts control of enzyme content, cell characteristics, and presence of accessory genes are important contributors to their final utilization in biotransformations.

The aim of this Special Issue on “Biocatalysis and Biotransformations” is to cover promising recent research and novel trends in biocatalysts specifically designed and/or isolated to solve on-going problems in catalysis. Contributions from all areas of homogeneous and supported catalysis, based on experimental results, OMIC tools and cultivation approaches, combinatorial and rational methods, molecular modeling, and synthetic biology, would be of great interest. Advances in these areas should be focused in solving relevant catalytic problems. Topics including (i) the discovery, design and utilization of promiscuous biocatalysts for performing efficiently multiple biotransformations; (ii) selective C-C, C-O and C-N functionalization; (iii) synthesis of novel bioactive molecules; (iv) novel efficient electro-biocatalysts; (v) microfluidic single-cell biocatalysis; (vi) isolation, design and construction of new whole cell biocatalysts; (vii)  design of novel immobilized biocatalysts; and (viii) novel catalytic reactions of interest in industrial settings will be covered. Original results providing new insights into biocatalysts specifically designed to solve actual problems in catalysis are particularly welcome. Contributions from all areas of homogeneous and supported catalysis, based on experimental results and/or molecular modeling, would be of great interest.

Dr. Manuel Ferrer
Guest Editor

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