1. Enzyme-mediated Synthesis of Industrially Important Enantiopure Compounds

   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 chemical catalysis.

            More than 40% of the top 200 selling drugs worldwide contain chiral amines as their constituents. Chiral amines are the indispensable constituents of agrochemicals, platform chemicals and many small molecule pharmaceuticals. To this end, the ever-increasing demands of enzyme-mediated synthesis of industrially important compounds are being elegantly met by engineered biocatalysts.

         One of the major verticals of our research areas is the enzymatic synthesis of industrially important enantiopure agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and other platform chemicals using interdisciplinary areas of applied microbiology, protein biochemistry, recombinant DNA technology, biocatalysis and chemistry.

2. Bioprocess Development and Downstream Processing

        Production of biomolecules is profoundly affected by the composition of the fermentation medium and the culture conditions. The type and concentration of various nutrient sources differentially affect the biomolecule production from various microbial sources. Also, multiple nutritional and environmental factors interact to influence biomolecules production. Therefore, optimization of nutritional and physico-chemical parameters is of profound importance in the development of fermentation processes for the production of biomolecules.

In terms of product recovery, 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.

          Bioprocess development and downstream processing is another important vertical of our research.