Natural product research

Natural products represent a rich source of novel pharmaceutical ingredients, agrochemicals, antibiotics, and flavours and fragrances. We are investigating natural products and novel enzymes from bacteria, fungi and plants – from both marine and terrestrial environments.

Once isolated, we refactor synthesis pathways to improve functional properties and enable production of commercially relevant quantities. The example above show a BrisSynBio isolated enzyme, which is the world’s first biological catalyst for the Diels–Alder reaction.

Production of difficult to make biological molecules

There is a multi-billion pound market for peptides, especially from the growing peptide therapeutics market. BrisSynBio’s first spin-out company (Zentraxa) uses the power of engineered biology to make peptides which are too difficult or expensive to produce using existing technologies such as solid phase synthesis.

Zentraxa’s proprietary bacterial platform enables rapid turnaround of new peptide designs as well as cost effective scale-up.