CHALLENGES

The biotechnological production of pharmaceuticals and biocommodities relies on enzymes. Indeed, the use of multi-enzymatic processes is considered a promising biomanufacturing platform but with several challenges that need to be solved:

• cross-reactivity found in enzyme cascades involving two or more enzymes competing for the same substrate.
• enzyme inactivation or inhibition at unsuitable temperature when using combination of meso and thermophile enzymes.
• finding optimal reaction conditions without negatively impacting on the stability of products and cofactors.

SOLUTION

HOTZYMES’ idea is to provide optimal temperature conditions for each reaction in a multi-step-scheme by coupling enzymes to magnetic nanoparticles that are controllable at nano-scale locally.
Thus, HOTZYMES sets out to develop a new ground-breaking concept to exert functional control over different enzymes using magnetic heating. This will be enabled by an immobilisation of enzymes on magnetic particles, which are exposed to an alternating magnetic field. Due to molecular movement, a desired micro-temperature can be created at the outer layer of the particle, where the catalysts are going to be attached. To ensure an easy separation, re-utilization and integration into bioreactors, these conjugates will be integrated within porous microparticles. To meet this technological break-through, it will be also necessary to design and fabricate a new generation of magnetic bioreactors specific to the field of Biocatalysis.