Inorganic/ChemBio/Organic Seminar - Xiongyi Huang

The Inorganic/ChemBio/Organic Seminar Series presents: Xiongyi Huang 
Johns Hopkins University 
Host: Yi Lu
Title: Unlocking Abiotic Transition Metal Catalysis in Nonheme Enzymes
Location; NHB 1.720

Repurposing natural enzymes to catalyze synthetic transformations absent in nature has emerged as a significant research field bridging chemistry and biology. A key challenge in this pursuit is the introduction of synthetic reaction mechanisms into natural protein scaffolds. Over the past decades, substantial breakthroughs have been achieved in this field, with many enzymatic systems developed to catalyze critical chemical transformations not previously observed in biology. However, much of this progress has focused on proteins or enzymes containing heme or organic cofactors. In this context, our group has drawn inspiration from mechanistic connections between synthetic and biocatalytic systems to explore the vast, untapped potential of nonheme enzymes for new-to-nature biocatalysis. This talk will highlight several enzymatic systems developed by our group over the past five years, which utilize diverse reaction mechanisms in transition metal catalysis for the formation of C‒N, C‒S, C‒C, C‒O, and C‒halogen bonds. We hope these systems will further advance the integration of synthetic chemistry and biology to innovate chemical synthesis, as well as deepen our understanding of both biochemical and synthetic reaction mechanisms.