A prestigious award for enginzyme's lead researcher

Our Lead Research Scientist Sebastian Gergel received the German Chemical Society Award for Biocatalysis at a ceremony Sept. 12. His dissertation was praised not only for the originality and excellence of its content but also for its linguistic and visual elaboration. The work laid the foundation for further projects and formed the basis for papers like this one in Nature Catalysis.

"We are happy and proud to have a distinguished scientist like Sebastian on our team," said Karim Engelmark Cassimjee, enginzyme's CEO. "He is a highly skilled researcher and a great person to work with."

We took a few minutes from his busy schedule for this brief interview:

Congratulations on the award, Sebastian. For the chemistry-challenged people out there, what was your dissertation about?

We taught an enzyme to catalyze a new reaction that had never been observed in nature. What we discovered could lead to more efficient chemical reactions of all kinds, for example, using inexpensive starting materials to create pharmaceutical precursors.

How did you land at enginzyme?

I applied for a job, and they hired me! But seriously, I always wanted to go into industry and apply all the skills that I learned throughout my PhD. Enginzyme seemed like a good middle ground — not a big conservative company with all kinds of structure.

I liked the idea of moving to a different country — Stockholm is great, and enginzyme is full of young people from all over, open-minded people who like to have some fun in the workplace. There is a good vibe that encourages you to come to work because basically you're meeting your friends every day.

Are you optimistic about the future of biocatalysis and sustainable chemistry in general?

I think advancements in sustainable chemistry will come from different areas eventually, not just from enzymatic processes. I believe that especially in the food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical sectors, enzymes can really make processes better because of their selectivity. However, chemical companies have their existing plants, and while they are still making money from them, there is little incentive to move massively into enzymatic processes. We need to see more commitment and more investment from them for this to happen at scale. The potential is there for sure.