Exploration Science-Ep. 2: The Science and Business of Biocatalysis

In this episode of exploration science, I sat down with Dr. Christina Boville and Dr. Andrew Buller. Tina and Andrew were postdocs in the laboratory of Professor Francis Arnold where they studied directed evolution. While they worked on the same project in the Arnold lab, they took very different career paths.
Tina is the CEO and co-founder of Aralez Bio, a biotech company based on the sustainable manufacturing of novel amino acids via biocatalysis. Andrew on the other hand, has pursued an academic career and is currently an assistant professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Andrew’s research is focused on the discovery of biocatalytic reactions to better understand protein engineering.
Tina and Andrew dive into scientific applications of biocatalysis, business challenges and opportunities, the green benefits of biocatalytic approaches, and some tasty chemistry.
Weblinks:
ipib.wisc.edu/staff/buller-an...
aralezbio.com/publications/
References:
Doyon, T.J., Kumar, P., Thein, S., Kim, M., Stitgen, A., Grieger, A.M., Madigan, C., Willoughby, P.H. and Buller, A.R. (2022), Scalable and Selective β-Hydroxy-α-Amino Acid Synthesis Catalyzed by Promiscuous l-Threonine Transaldolase ObiH. ChemBioChem. doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202100577 Rix, G., Watkins-Dulaney, E.J., Almhjell, P.J. et al. Scalable continuous evolution for the generation of diverse enzyme variants encompassing promiscuous activities. Nat. Commun. 11, 5644 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19...

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