Enzymes are powerful tools for chemical synthesis, but their natural setting within a microbe’s metabolism can limit their industrial use. Fermentation systems have to balance keeping a organism alive with coaxing it to crank out chemical products. Cell-free biosynthesis aims to sidestep that constraint by using isolated enzymes instead of intact microbes—an idea that is attracting chemistry investors and entrepreneurs.
In the most recent example of a cell-free enzyme start-up generating investor interest, the University of Oxford spinout HydRegen closed an $8 million series A funding round last week led by the early-stage investment firm Genoa Ventures. HydRegen is commercializing methods to use immobilized hydrogenase enzymes in conventional chemical reactors.
