Professor Lawrence P. Wackett
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Department of Biochemistry
Biological Process Technology Institute
1479 Gortner Ave.wacke003@umn.edu
University of Minnesota
St. Paul, MN 55108-6106
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Department of Biochemistry
Biological Process Technology Institute
1479 Gortner Ave.wacke003@umn.edu
University of Minnesota
St. Paul, MN 55108-6106
The Wackett laboratory studies microbial catabolic enzymology and functional genomics: fundamental biological mechanisms, enzyme evolution and applications for biotechnology. More than eighteen million chemical compounds are known. Most of them do not accumulate in the environment, and this suggests they serve as substrates for one or more microbial enzymes. Microbial enzymes represent the most diverse biocatalytic potential on Earth. Our knowledge of what nature has wrought is increasingly being used for bioremediation to detoxify hazardous waste and biocatalysis to synthesize specialty chemicals. Studies of microbial metabolism are also important in the context of functional genomics. Microbial genome sequencing projects are leading to the accumulation of genes with unknown function. Reverse genomics approaches are being used to discover a broad range of new microbial functions which will be used to identify unknown genes derived from the genome sequencing projects. We represent the breadth of microbial biocatalytic reactions on the web-based Biocatalysis/Biodegradation Database.