Senior Investigators: Prof. John Hartwig (UC-Berkeley), Prof. Huimin Zhao (University of Illinois).

We are conducting a series of studies on tandem catalysis with enzymatic transformations that would be valuable for fine-chemical synthesis. We have sought to combine the reactivity of an organometallic catalyst for isomerization of alkenes with that of a P540 enzyme for site-selective oxidation of alkanes as a way to develop new methods to oxidatively functionalize alkane. This work would extend dramatically the capabilities of tandem catalysis by showing that two systems from disparate fields of catalysis can operate in the same vessel to generate products that are not accessible with the alkene reactant using any currently available single catalyst alone.

Patents and Published Papers:

Wang, M.; Si, T.; Zhao, H., "Biocatalyst development by directed evolution", Bioresource Technolog., 2012,  in press.
(DOI:10.1016/j.biortech.2012.01.054)