INDUSTRIAL SCALE PRODUCTION OF CYANOBACTIN ENZYMES FOR FAST AND EFFICIENT CYCLIC PEPTIDE SYNTHESIS.

The pharmaceutical industry needs cleaner and greener ways to produce complex compounds that will form the basis of future pharmaceuticals. In this project we will use enzymatic methods to generate cyclic compounds which may be applied as potential treatments for a range of diseases (e.g. fungal infection, epilepsy). The enzymes are derived from a marine blue-green alga and have been modified to make them more efficient. Combining these enzymes enables us to generate the compounds of interest in a few days compared to chemical synthesis which may take months. One aim of this project is to optimise the production of these enzymes with industry input, as well as streamline the whole process, including practical purification procedures. A key aim is to generate some compounds in reasonable quantity for testing against a number of disease models. Using this process we anticipate starting a company based around the ability to generate these unique cyclic compounds in a sustainable way.