Joerg Schrittwieser
University of Graz, Austria
Joerg Schrittwieser completed his master’s studies in 2008 and his PhD in 2011 under the guidance of Prof. Wolfgang Kroutil at the University of Graz (Austria). After a post-doctoral stay at TU Delft (The Netherlands) with Prof. Frank Hollmann, financed through an ‘Erwin Schrödinger’ fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund, he returned to the University of Graz in 2013 as a university assistant. There, Dr. Schrittwieser became a permanent staff scientist in 2018 and obtained his habilitation in organic chemistry in May 2024. His research interests include biocatalytic asymmetric reduction, multi-enzymatic and chemo-enzymatic cascade reactions, and the chemo-enzymatic synthesis of natural products, in particular alkaloids.
Building molecular complexity: biocatalytic key bond formations for organic synthesis
Abstract: Over the last decades, biocatalysis has established itself as a valuable synthetic tool in both academia and industry. The unique ability of enzymes to carry out reactions with exquisite chemo-, regio-, and stereoselectivity has made them a prime choice for challenging chemical transformations of highly functionalised molecules that are difficult to achieve by other means. However, in the logic of retrosynthetic analysis, many of biocatalysis’ most successful reactions are functional group interconversions. To fully realise the potential of enzymes for target molecule synthesis, we need to expand the portfolio of biocatalytic methods that form carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bonds. In my talk, I will use examples from our group’s work as well as highlights from other literature to show how the strategic use of biocatalytic key bond-forming reactions can expedite the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, natural products, and other molecules of interest.
NextGenBiocat 