Kenneth Jensen

Enzyme Discovery, Novozymes A/S, Lyngby, Denmark

 

INPEC node since 2020

 

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The focus of our research is centered around enzymes for industrial use. Enzymes are used in an ever-growing range of industries, which continuously change the environments in which the enzymes are applied. Our role is to adapt enzymes to function optimally in the industrially settings, such as high temperature liquefaction for bioethanol production, use in liquid detergents or stability during manufacturing/long term storage. For this purpose, we apply a broad range of computational and experimental methods, including rational design and direction evolution. My personal expertise is centered around CAZymes, in particular for biomass degradation and posttranslational modification of enzymes.

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My most recent obsession is centered around depolymerization of plastic, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), from both an enzymatic and microbial point of view. This work is done in collaboration with a number of academic groups, and focus ranges from enabling biorecycling of biopolymers to evolution of next generation enzymes for recycling/bioremediation of petroleum-based polymers.

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Keywords: rational engineering, directed evolution, industrial application, protein engineering, multidomain enzymes, protein stability, enzyme evolution.