Yang Lab
Principal Investigator: Yang Yang
Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA)
Primary Subfield: Synthetic Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
Project Summary Biocatalysis represents a powerful emerging technology for the biomanufacturing of biologically active molecular agents and clinically significant therapeutics. Previously, the practice of biocatalysis is largely limited to the utilization and engineering of native enzymology from nature. New-to-nature enzymatic chemistries which are synthetically useful yet never encountered in biology remain largely underexploited. Combining biocatalysis and photochemistry, we propose a novel and generalizable photobiocatalysis strategy to reprogram diverse pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)-dependent enzymes as radical enzymes to catalyze stereoselective intermolecular radical reactions. Notably, these newly developed enzymatic reactions are not previously known in either biochemistry or organic chemistry. By merging photoredox catalysis powered by visible light and pyridoxal biocatalysis fine-tuned by directed evolution, a range of non-canonical amino acids that are often incorporated into medicines and therapeutic protein targets will be produced with excellent stereocontrol. By leveraging novel activation mechanisms involving open-shell PLP covalent intermediates, we will design and de…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01EB036084-02: Pyridoxal Radical Biocatalysis for the Stereoselective Production of Non-Canonical Amino Acids (2026)
- 5R35GM147387-05: An Evolvable Metalloenzyme Platform for Stereoselective Radical Biocatalysis (2026)
- 5R35GM147387-04: An Evolvable Metalloenzyme Platform for Stereoselective Radical Biocatalysis (2025)
- 1R01EB036084-01A1: Pyridoxal Radical Biocatalysis for the Stereoselective Production of Non-Canonical Amino Acids (2025)
- 5R35GM147387-03: An Evolvable Metalloenzyme Platform for Stereoselective Radical Biocatalysis (2024)
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