Biosciences
Exeter Biocatalysis Centre
The Exeter Biocatalysis Centre was officially opened on the 25 November 2003 by Professor Sir Christopher Evans, OBE. Sir Christopher is one of Europe's leading biotechnology venture capitalists. Based in the Henry Wellcome building, the Centre creates a first-class knowledge resource of academic, postdoctoral and PhD researchers. This will lead to further advances in:
- our understanding of biological catalysis
- the synthesis of novel and safer therapeutics by using enzymes in chemical synthetic procedures
- an understanding of the effect of amino acid changes in human proteins and their involvement in disease such as oxidative stress, Alzheimer’s disease and various inherited diseases such as type II diabetes
- the discovery and design of new systems for applications as diverse as high throughput biocatalytic synthesis and screening in micro-reactors, environmental bioremediation and the production of biosensors
- the study of proteins found in hostile environments at the extremes of temperature, pressure, and pH and their commercial applications in biotechnology.
Professor Jenny Littlechild heads the work being undertaken at the centre, encompassing research into the aspects of biocatalysis such as:
- relationships between protein structure and function
- protein engineering
- molecular graphics and protein crystallography
Biocatalysis draws on a broad range of expertise, bringing together researchers from the University of Exeter's Schools of Biosciences; Engineering, Computing and Mathematics; Physics and the Peninsula Medical School.
