prof. dr. G.J. (Gerrit) Poelarends

The research of Prof. dr. G.J. Poelarends is aimed at the discovery and design of novel biocatalysts and biosynthetic pathways for the production of pharmaceutically relevant products. One area of interest is the development of new biocatalysts and multienzymatic cascades for efficient asymmetric synthesis of noncanonical amino acids with biologically important properties. Another area of interest is the development of enantioselective biocatalysts for oxidation, reduction, hydration, Michael addition, hydroamination, and aldol addition reactions as broadly useful synthetic bond-forming methodologies for the production of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals. Finally, we work on the characterization and optimization of promiscuous protein functions, which will contribute to expanding our knowledge of the parameters involved in natural and laboratory enzyme evolution.

Publications of Prof. dr. G.J. Poelarends in PubMed

We are currently working on the following projects:

• Engineering enamine and iminium biocatalysis for applications in pharmaceutical synthesis
  

Exemplary publications:

Enantiocomplementary Epoxidation Reactions Catalyzed by an Engineered Cofactor-Independent Non-Natural Peroxygenase

Enantioselective Aldol Addition of Acetaldehyde to Aromatic Aldehydes Catalyzed by Proline-Based Carboligases

Biocatalytic Asymmetric Michael Additions of Nitromethane to α,β-Unsaturated Aldehydes via Enzyme-bound Iminium Ion Intermediates

Enantioselective Synthesis of Pharmaceutically Active γ-Aminobutyric Acids Using a Tailor-Made Artificial Michaelase in One-Pot Cascade Reactions

Using mutability landscapes of a promiscuous tautomerase to guide the engineering of enantioselective Michaelases

• Discovery and engineering of carbon-nitrogen lyases for asymmetric synthesis of noncanonical amino acids

Exemplary publications:

Engineered C–N Lyase: Enantioselective Synthesis of Chiral Synthons for Artificial Dipeptide Sweeteners

Biocatalytic Asymmetric Synthesis of N-Aryl-Functionalized Amino Acids and Substituted Pyrazolidinones

Chemoenzymatic asymmetric synthesis of the metallo-β-lactamase inhibitor aspergillomarasmine A and related aminocarboxylic acids

Chemoenzymatic Synthesis and Pharmacological Characterization of Functionalized Aspartate Analogues As Novel Excitatory Amino Acid Transporter Inhibitors

Engineering methylaspartate ammonia lyase for the asymmetric synthesis of unnatural amino acids

• Enzyme engineering guided by mutability landscapes

Exemplary publications:

The Generation and Exploitation of Protein Mutability Landscapes for Enzyme Engineering

Using Mutability Landscapes to Guide Engineering of Enzyme Activity and Enantioselectivity

Using Mutability Landscapes to Guide Enzyme Thermostabilization

Using Mutability Landscapes to Tune Enzyme Activity for Nonaqueous Solvents

• Engineered and artificial peroxygenases for oxyfunctionalizations

Exemplary publications:

Current state and future perspectives of engineered and artificial peroxygenases for the oxyfunctionalization of organic molecules

Engineered Cofactor‐Independent Non‐natural Peroxygenase

• Discovery and engineering of ene- and nitroreductases
  

Exemplary publications:

Photobiocatalysis with nitroreductases

 

Current research team:

Pieter Tepper (Technician)

Ronald van Merkerk (Technician)

Laura Bothof (PhD student, GRIP)

Sara Russo (PhD student, MLH, in collaboration with Prof. Marco Fraaije)

Hangyu Zhou (PhD student, CSC)

Xiaofang Gong (PhD student, CSC)

Damiano Baroni (PhD student, ITN)

Veronika Chadimová (PhD student, ITN)

Carina Kipp (PhD student, DN)

Liu Yang (PhD student, DN)

Alejandro Prats Lujan (Post-doc)

 Previous members:

 Dr. Vinod Puthan Veetil (former PhD student and post-doc; PhD thesis defence on July 13, 2012)

 Dr. Ellen Zandvoort (former PhD student; PhD thesis defence on December 7, 2012)

 Dr. Marianne de Villiers (former Post-doc; October 2010-October 2012)

 Dr. Anna Wasiel (former PhD student; PhD thesis defence on April 19, 2013)

 Dr. Jandré de Villiers (former Post-doc; October 2010-October 2013)

 Dr. Hans Raj (former PhD student and post-doc; PhD thesis defence on October 11, 2013; Cum Laude)

 Dr. Edzard Geertsema (former Post-doc; September 2010-September 2014)

 Dr. Bert-Jan Baas (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on December 22, 2014)

 Dr. Yufeng Miao (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on June 5, 2015)

 Dr. Sabry Hamdy Hamed Younes (former Post-doc and guest researcher; October 2013-December 2015)

 Dr. Mehran Rahimi (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on May 27th, 2016)

 Dr. Jan Ytzen van der Meer (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on October 7, 2016)

 Dr. Yan Ni (former Post-doc; July 2016-July 2017)

Dr. Tjie Kok Go (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on January 25th, 2019)

Dr. Jielin Zhang (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on August 26th, 2019)

Dr. Haigen Fu (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on September 20th, 2019; Cum Laude)

Dr. Saravanan Thangavelu (former Post-doc, July 2016-January 2020)

Dr. Mohammad Saifuddin (former Post-doc, June 2016-June 2020)

Dr. Harshwardhan Poddar (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on June 5th, 2020)

Dr. Laura Florez-Sampedro (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on October 16th, 2020)

Dr. Lieuwe Biewenga (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on November 13th, 2020)

Dr. Chao Guo (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on March 12th, 2021)

Dr. ShanShan Song (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on June 14th, 2021)

Dr. Mohammad Z. Abidin (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on October 1, 2021)

Dr. Michele Crotti (former Post-doc)

Dr. Andreas Kunzendorf (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on April 4, 2022)

Dr. Guangcai Xu (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on June 28, 2022)

Dr. Marie-Catherine Sigmund (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on June 16, 2023)

Dr. Eleonora Grandi (former PhD student, PhD thesis defence on June 20, 2023)

Mohammad Faizan Bath (PhD student, awaiting PhD thesis defence) 

Fabiola Zuchi (PhD student, awaiting PhD thesis defence)