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Hollfelder Group

Ph.D

Joined the Hollfelder group: September 2021

Background and Current Projects: I received my bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg, Germany. During my bachelor’s study, I conducted research internships in the fields of structural biology (Dr. Christian Biertümpfel, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany), virology (Prof. Dr. Gülsah Gabriel, HPI - Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology, Germany), and environmental toxicology (Dr. Johan Lundqvist, VHC Research Centre – SLU Uppsala, Sweden).

For my bachelor’s thesis, I researched in phototrophic whole-cell biocatalysis with Prof. Bruno Bühler at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany. I worked on establishing a synthetic cascade for the conversion of cyclohexane to epsilon-caprolactone in Pseudomonas taiwanensis and Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803.

I pursued a master’s degree in Life Science & Technology with an Annotation in Technology for Sustainable Development at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. For an industry internship, I was working at the interface of sustainability, technology, and innovation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

During my master’s thesis, I researched in enzyme biocatalysis with Prof. Sven Panke at ETH Zürich D-BSSE in collaboration with Prof. Frank Hollmann at TU Delft. My thesis aimed at immobilisation of peroxygenase rAaeUPO for increased performance in hydrophobic environments and application of the catalyst for synthesis of epoxides in neat reactions.

Within my PhD, I am working on the directed evolution of enzymes as biocatalysts for sustainable chemical and pharmaceutical processes. By combining droplet microfluidics at ultrahigh throughput with novel deep sequencing methods, I aim to improve our understanding of the evolvability of enzymes in order to prospectively improve current methods in directed evolution. Furthermore, I aim to translate identified principles on enzyme evolution for the engineering of biocatalysts to enable more sustainable industrial production processes.

Interests: I very much enjoy swimming, long cycle tours, gardening and nature, and am highly enthusiastic about all kinds of sustainability topics

 

Publications

[2]  Tüllinghoff A, Uhl MB., Nintzel FEH, Schmid A, Bühler B, Toepel J. Maximizing Photosynthesis-Driven Baeyer–Villiger Oxidation Efficiency in Recombinant Synechocystis sp. PCC6803. Frontiers in Catalysis, 2022, 1. Link

[1] Nintzel FEH, Wu Y, Planchestainer M, Held M, Alcalde M, & Hollmann F. An alginate-confined peroxygenase-CLEA for styrene epoxidation. Chemical Communications, 2021, 57, 5766-5769 . Link

Contact Details

80 Tennis Court Road
Cambridge, CB2 1GA
email: fehn2@cam.ac.uk
01223 766 046

Job Title

PhD student, OligoMed ESR