Welcome to Biocatalysis and Bioengineering Laboratory

Enzyme-mediated processes are well-recognized for asymmetric transformations, because they can be conducted under mild conditions, and as part of short synthetic routes. The generation of fewer byproducts while avoiding the use of toxic reagents, and the excellent chemo-, regio-, and stereo-selectivity exhibited by enzymes can give biocatalytic routes a considerable advantage over traditional abiotic catalysis.  

The ever-increasing demands of enzyme-mediated synthesis of industrially important compounds are being elegantly met by engineered biocatalysts. In relation to the downstream processing of biological products, even the modest improvements in the process can mean the difference between commercial success and failure. Despite the availability of various approaches, an effective method for the purification of a biomolecule of interest from numerous intracellular products is a major challenge at all levels from laboratory to large scale.

Proteins exhibit the diverse range of characteristics with respect to size, charge, hydrophobicity, etc and therefore purification of a homogeneous protein represents about 60-70% of the total operating cost of the bioprocesses. No single method provides a universal solution for the process of purification of a molecule of interest from milliard of intracellular products.

The research efforts of our lab are dedicated towards upstream and downstream processing and/or analytical characterization of recombinant proteins like antibodies, and industrially important enzymes/ proteins and engineering of various biocatalysts such as transaminases, imine reductases, amine dehydrogenases, monoamine oxidases, oxidoreductases, etc and their application for the synthesis of industrially important chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.