Naveen Kulkarni

Title : Novel enzymatic route for industrial aldehyde oxidation: A key step towards green chemistry

Abstract:

The traditional industrial oxidation reaction of aldehyde results in a large quantity of unwanted waste chemical byproducts which must be disposed or otherwise managed Therefore, there is an unmet need in the art to provide a method for this chemical transformation that can overcome one or more disadvantages of the existing chemical synthesis method such as eliminate the side product formation and reduces the need to use of chemicals that are harmful to the environment. Here, we provide a method for the enzymatic conversion of aldehyde to carboxylic acid that serves as a precursor with great pharmaceutical importance and massive environmental impact. It is a well-established fact that in silico enzyme engineering approaches such as molecular modeling, docking, and simulation, provide a molecular-level understanding of the function of biocatalysts and specifically unfurling the role of key residues both within and outside the catalytic site. However, the intelligent workflow of these protocols is crucial for the application in enzyme engineering and design in silico. Quantumzyme has applied QZyme WorkbenchTM, an integrated workflow using open-source computational methods and proprietary scripts for scanning all the events involved in the biocatalytic process with the ultimate objective to discover and engineer the enzyme that can be used for industrial-scale applications and replace the traditional catalyst with a greener and eco-friendly substitute.
Keywords: Biocatalysis, Aldehyde Oxidation, Qzyme WorkbenchTM, Enzyme Engineering, Green Chemistry.

Biography:

Naveen is a scientist, entrepreneur and hands-on executive officer with more than 25 years of scientific and entrepreneurial experience in pharma, biotech and healthcare industries. Prior to founding Quantumzyme, Naveen has been mentoring and advising start-ups on Business Plan, Business Models and support in funding. Naveen served as the CEO of Biotech start-ups, and prior to that as Director at Philips Research, where he was associated with a portfolio of opportunities for new business creation in healthcare and energy sector. He worked as a principal consultant for SysArris Inc, USA, where he integrated the Bioinformatics services for the company that positioned the company a leading technology provider in the health sector. Naveen has contributed to many scientific publications featured in journals like Nature, ACS Biocatalysis to name a few. Naveen also served as a member of the advisory board of reputed institutions including JSS University, SDM Institutions, RVCE and Welingkar. Naveen has studied Masters in Life Science at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane and did his Research at CRC for Diagnostic Technologies, Brisbane Australia. Naveen strongly believes that the future of protein engineering will be dominated by computational research, and Quantumzyme will be on top to maximise the potential of Biocatalysis.