Enzyme technology and bioprocess engineering

The impact of directed evolution and site-specific mutagenesis on the industrial utility of enzymatic catalysis through the modification of enzyme structure and function is clearly an important area of research in bioprocess engineering. High-throughput screening for novel or improved enzyme activities, both by more efficiently exploring nature's diversity and by creating new diversity in the test tube, allows new bioprocesses to be developed. Similarly, innovations in enzyme technology that address novel ways to apply enzymes in bioprocesses also have an impact on bioprocess engineering. Several recent developments have been made in this latter aspect of bioprocess engineering.