Six years after the symposium on Stability and Stabilization of Enzymes, a second symposium, Stability and Stabilization of Biocatalysts, on which this book is based, was organized. At the symposium, 210 participants representing all continents came together to learn from 150 oral and poster communications.The volume brings up-to-date the work already going on, and identifies possible breakthroughs in the research. This timely book therefore presents cutting edge developments in topics such as non-covalent processes in solution, protein engineering and thermophile enzymes, immobilized enzymes, non-conventional media, and whole cells.An excellent addition to the available literature, it will make a useful contribution to this key area of applied biocatalysis.

These proceedings contain most of the oral presentations and posters of the international symposium on Stability and Stabilization of Enzymes held in Maastricht in November 1992. They provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in this field. The possible applications of enzymes are enormous. Years of development have seen many enzymes brought onto the market, but they are still expensive to use. Therefore, their efficient application is a prerequisite for common usage. One of the main factors for this efficiency is the stability of the enzymes. The topics thus ranged from the extensive fundamental thermodynamic knowledge gathered in academic research to the practical applied knowledge built up in industry during the time that enzymes have been produced commercially. The subject Stability and Stabilization of Enzymes was discussed from various points of view, as was reflected in the themes of the symposium sessions. In the session on Fundamentals of Enzyme Stabilisation the thermodynamic background of the phenomenon was highlighted. In yet another session, the recently developed analytical tools to measure enzyme stability and stabilisation were discussed. Further sessions comprised the physical, chemical and biological ways to obtain enzyme stabilisation and finally, the industrial practice of enzyme stabilisation was treated by representatives of the world's most important enzyme producers. The book will be of interest to researchers in universities and industry in the fields of biochemistry, enzymology and biotechnology.

Early integration is the key to success in industrial biotechnology. This is as true when a selected wild-type organism is put to work as when an organism is engineered for a purpose. The present volume Engineering and Manufacturing for Biotechnology took advantage of the 9th European Congress on Biotechnology (Brussels, Belgium, July 11-15, 1999): in the topics handled and in the expertise of the contributors, the engineering science symposia of this congress offered just what was needed to cover the important topic of integration of process engineering and biological research. The editors have solicited a number of outstanding contributions to illustrate the intimate interaction between productive organisms and the numerous processing steps running from the initial inoculation to the packaged product. Upstream processing of the feed streams, selection of medium components, product harvesting, downstream processing, and product conditioning are just a few major steps. Each step imposes a number of important choices. Every choice is to be balanced against time to market, profitability, safety, and ecology.

Biocatalysis has become an essential tool in the chemical industry and is the core of industrial biotechnology, also known as white biotechnology, making use of biocatalysts in terms of enzymes or whole cells in chemical processes as an alternative to chemical catalysts. This shift can be seen in the many areas of daily life where biocatalysts-with

Therapeutic enzymes exhibit fascinating features and opportunities, and represent a significant and promising subcategory of modern biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of several severe diseases. Research and drug developments efforts and the advancements in biotechnology over the past twenty years have greatly assisted the introduction of efficient and safe enzyme-based therapies for a range of both rare and common disorders. The introduction and regulatory approval of twenty different recombinant enzymes has enabled effective enzyme-replacement therapy. This volume aims to overview these therapeutic enzymes, focusing in particular on more recently approved enzymes produced by recombinant DNA technology. This volume is composed of four sections. Section 1 provides an overview of the production process and biochemical characterization of therapeutic enzymes, while Section 2 focuses upon the engineering strategies and delivery methods of therapeutic enzymes. Section 3 highlights the clinical applications of approved therapeutic enzymes, including aspects on their structure, indications and mechanisms of action. Together with information on these mechanisms, safety and immunogenicity issues and various adverse events of the recombinant enzymes used for therapy are discussed. Section 4, provides discussion on the prospective and future developments of new therapeutic enzymes. This book is aimed at academics, researchers and students undertaking advanced undergraduate/postgraduate programs in the biopharmaceutical/biotechnology area who wish to gain a comprehensive understanding of enzyme-based therapeutic molecules.

This book describes the essential steps in the development of biocatalytic processes from concept to completion. It is a carefully integrated text which combines the fundamentals of biocatalysis with technological experience and in-depth commercial case studies. The book starts with an introductory look at the characteristics and present applications of biocatalysts, followed by more detailed overviews of these areas.

Enzymes and whole cells are able to catalyze the most complex chemical processes under the most benign experimental and environmental conditions. In this way, enzymes and cells could be excellent catalysts for a much more sustainable chemical industry. However, enzymes and cells also have some limitations for nonbiological applications: fine chemistry, food chemistry, analysis, therapeutics, and so on. Enzymes and cells may be unstable, difficult to handle under nonconventional conditions, poorly selective toward synthetic substrates, and so forth. From this point of view, the transformation—from the laboratory to industry—of chemical processes catalyzed by enzymes and cells may be one of the most complex and exciting goals in biotechnology. For many industrial applications, enzymes and cells have to be immobilized, via very simple and cost-effective protocols, in order to be re-used over very long periods of time. From this point of view, immobilization, simplicity, and stabilization have to be strongly related concepts. Over the last 30 years, a number of protocols for the immobilization of cells and enzymes have been reported in scientific literature. However, only very few protocols are simple and useful enough to greatly improve the functional properties of enzymes and cells, activity, stability, selectivity, and related properties.

Six years after the symposium on Stability and Stabilization of Enzymes, a second symposium, Stability and Stabilization of Biocatalysts, on which this book is based, was organized. At the symposium, 210 participants representing all continents came together to learn from 150 oral and poster communications. The volume brings up-to-date the work already going on, and identifies possible breakthroughs in the research. This timely book therefore presents cutting edge developments in topics such as non-covalent processes in solution, protein engineering and thermophile enzymes, immobilized enzymes, non-conventional media, and whole cells.An excellent addition to the available literature, it will make a useful contribution to this key area of applied biocatalysis.

This book was written with the purpose of providing a sound basis for the design of enzymatic reactions based on kinetic principles, but also to give an updated vision of the potentials and limitations of biocatalysis, especially with respect to recent app- cations in processes of organic synthesis. The ?rst ?ve chapters are structured in the form of a textbook, going from the basic principles of enzyme structure and fu- tion to reactor design for homogeneous systems with soluble enzymes and hete- geneous systems with immobilized enzymes. The last chapter of the book is divided into six sections that represent illustrative case studies of biocatalytic processes of industrial relevance or potential, written by experts in the respective ?elds. We sincerely hope that this book will represent an element in the toolbox of gr- uate students in applied biology and chemical and biochemical engineering and also of undergraduate students with formal training in organic chemistry, biochemistry, thermodynamics and chemical reaction kinetics. Beyond that, the book pretends also to illustrate the potential of biocatalytic processes with case studies in the ?eld of organic synthesis, which we hope will be of interest for the academia and prof- sionals involved in R&D&I. If some of our young readers are encouraged to engage or persevere in their work in biocatalysis this will certainly be our more precious reward.