Biocatalysts for Abiological Chemistry: Bringing New Bonds to Life

This project will generate enzyme catalysts for cost-effective, sustainable, and selective syntheses of chemical building blocks that can be used to develop new materials for Army applications. The enzymes catalyze reactions not known in nature, such as formation of new carbon-boron bonds or highly-strained ring structures, that are difficult or impossible to do with known chemical methods.

The project team seeks to investigate novel enzymatic routes towards the synthesis of highly strained nitrogen-containing molecules, specifically 1) enzyme-catalyzed carbene transfer to nitriles to make azirines and azabicyclobutanes and 2) nitrene transfer to alkynes, alkenes, and allenes to make various strained azacycles. This work would build on our recent successful demonstration of heme protein-catalyzed carbene transfer to alkynes to make highly strained carbocycles and nitrene transfer to alkenes to make aziridines. Our goal is to demonstrate proof of principle for these novel synthetic capabilities and to supply product compounds to Army lab collaborators for further derivatization and characterization.