GET TO KNOW THE TEAM
Hosting Company: CASCAT GmbH
CASCAT GmbH is a young and innovative Start-up company in the field of industrial biotechnology. The expertise of CASCAT is to combine the best of two worlds – synthetic biotechnology and classical chemical catalysis – to realize novel process routes. CASCAT develops multi-stage processes that will bring industrial production to the next level. In order to obtain stable and robust processes which can be applied in industrial scale CASCAT engineers enzymes towards optimal process conditions and the presence of their chemical counterparts. The use of promiscuous bio-catalysts enables short cascades and reduced needs of cost intensive co-factors thus lowering production costs. Using this approach, we realize synthetic cascades towards chemical building blocks, fine chemicals as well as pharmaceutical molecules. CASCAT was awarded two times for its business plan in 2015 (1th place, Plan B, 3rd place Ideenreich) and was placed fourth at the ACHEMA Gründerpreis in the section of industrial biotechnology.
Researchers associated with INTERfaces
André Pick is the coordinator. André Pick will be the supervisor of ESR8 and ESR12. They share responsibilities in the context of research and development. André Pick is responsible for enzyme development and process development.
Key Research Facilities, Infrastructure and Equipment
CASCAT GmbH offers know-how and equipment for molecular biology with S1-safety (PCR, cloning), enzyme expression, protein purification (Äkta purifier), enzyme engineering, instrumental analysis (HPLC) and process development (tailored enzyme reactors). Furthermore, CASCAT GmbH has access to middle scale (2, 15, 30L bioreactors) and next generation sequencing units (Illumina) as well as further analytical instruments (NMR, GC, GC-MS, HPLC-MS).
Relevant Publications and/or Research / Innovation Product
- A. Pick, J. Schmid, V. Sieber. Characterization of uronate dehydrogenases catalyzing the initial step in an oxidative pathway. Microbial Biotechnology. 2015, 8, 633-643.
- A. Pick, W. Ott, T. Howe, J. Schmid, V. Sieber. Improving the NADH-cofactor specificity of the highly active AdhZ3 and AdhZ2 from Escherichia coli K-12. J. Biotechnol., 2014, 189, 157-165.
- B. Beer, A. Pick, V. Sieber. In vitro metabolic engineering for the production of ɑ-ketoglutarate. Metab. Eng., 2017, 40, 5-13.
- J. Schmid, V. Sieber. Enzymatic transformations involved in the biosynthesis of microbial exo-polysaccharides based on the assembly of repeat units. ChemBioChem, 2015, 16, 1141-1147.
- J. Schmid, V. Sieber, B. Rehm. Bacterial exopolysaccharides: Biosynthesis pathways and engineering strategies. Research Topic Microbial Exopolysaccharides: From genes to applications. Front. Microbiol., 2015, 6: 496.