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Research

We are fascinated by how enzymes work and how they can make synthetic chemistry easier. Along the way, we invent methods to help us address these questions.

Most of our research features phosphorylated intermediates. Nature uses phosphates extensively - as solubility anchors, energy carriers, linkers, nucleophiles, leaving groups or general electrophiles - to orchestrate complex chemical transformations under mild, aqueous conditions. Our work aims to use this versatility and prowess for synthetic (bio-)organic chemistry. As such, we develop biocatalytic solutions to synthetic problems by expanding the toolbox of enzymes which nature has already designed for us. To this end, we establish methods to interrogate these enzymes and use those to understand how they operate and to engineer them into powerful catalysts for desired transformations. Thus, our work provides broadly applicable tools to study enzymatic transformations, insights into how the catalytic machinery of life operates, and catalysts for the preparation of complex biomolecules and their analogues. 

New methods 


Understanding how enzymes work


Enzyme engineering 

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