University of Groningen

The Molecular Enzymology group led by Prof. Marco Fraaije has outstanding expertise in the field of discovery and engineering of oxidative enzymes. These redox enzymes represent a relatively unexplored and attractive group of enzymes, as they are able to catalyze a huge variety of oxidation reactions while exhibiting a remarkable selectivity. Besides exploring the biocatalytic potential of these biocatalysts, research also aims at a thorough understanding of these oxidative enzymes. Special focus is on flavin cofactor containing enzymes. Enzymes containing such organic cofactors have been shown to be incredibly flexible in catalytic properties. Therefore they fulfil numerous crucial roles in biology, e.g. light sensing, electron transfer, oxidations, reductions, halogenations and are often valuable or promising biocatalysts for industrial applications.

The Fraaije laboratories are fully equipped to perform detailed analyses in the areas of analytical chemistry, microbiology, protein biochemistry and molecular biology. Within the ROBOX project, we will exploit our expertise on knowledge-based enzyme discovery and engineering to generate and produce tailored oxidative enzymes that can be used for industrial applications.

