Enzymatic Piezoelectric Composites To Regenerate Redox-Cofactors Driven By Mechanical Sources.

The cost-efficient production of sustainably derived biochemicals and biofuels is a critical goal of modern biotechnology. Redox-biosynthetic pathways are fundamental in chemical manufacturing for establishing a bio-based economy. The sustainable regeneration and recycling of redox cofactors is a pre-requisite for the viable industrial exploitation of many described redox-biosynthetic pathways. These boundaries hamper the employment of cofactor-dependent biotransformations at large-scale production processes. To overcome these limitations, the main objective of this project, PIEZOZYMES, pushes the forefront of technology, pursuing novel biotechnological tools aimed at the efficient regeneration of redox cofactors powered by mechanical sources. Such progress will bring several advantages over the current cofactor-regeneration systems, where the traditionally employed biochemical, electrochemical and photonic sources will be replaced by mechanical ones. The resulting technology of this project will have valuable social impact, paving new pathways for the cost-efficient exploitation of cofactor-dependent enzymes as economically suitable biocatalysts in a plethora of industrial catalytic biotransformations.