Further information Application in the development of artificial enzymes Research group The group led by Professor Thomas Ward (Department of Chemistry, University of Basel) Thomas Ward uses AlphaFold to support the development of arti昀椀cial enzymes which could serve as cat- https://ward.chemie.unibas. alysts in sustainable production processes for the chemical or pharmaceutical industry. For ch/en/ example, the researchers can use AlphaFold to validate designs obtained with other calcu- lation tools or by rational engineering. They can easily examine the expected structure of a new enzyme and compare it with design speci昀椀cations. Moreover, the predicted structures can help researchers understand the function of new enzymes and thereby identify parts of them that may need to be changed in order to improve their activity, for example. “Pre- viously, time-consuming and often di昀케cult experiments were necessary to determine the enzyme’s structure. With AlphaFold, a predicted structure with (often) su昀케cient accuracy can now be obtained within minutes to hours from simple web servers,” says Dr. Tobias Vornholt from Ward’s team. SNI doctoral student Damian Graf works in Thomas Ward’s team. SNI INSight December 2024 9