Profile

Currently, fossil fuels are used to power our cars. In particular, oil. However fossil fuels are non-renewable, which means that one day they will run out. Scientists are looking into various forms of renewable methods which will not run out, to create the fuel needed to power our cars. One such method is using the waste plant material left after farmers have ploughed their fields. The downside to using this material, however, is that it is very hard to break down to produce what is known as bioethanol or biodiesel fuels. Harsh treatments of steam and chemicals are used at the moment, which are not cheap or clean to the environment.

This is where my enzyme comes in to the story. An enzyme is a biological molecule, often a protein, that plays a role in helping a reaction take place. My enzyme is able to speed up the breakdown of the long chains, such as cellulose, within the plant material. To do this, it uses copper metal to react with oxygen in the air to break one of the very strong bonds in the cellulose chain. In nature, fungi and bacteria use produce this enzyme and use it to break down plants for their food. So, we can hopefully learn from them and use it in our industrial systems to produce our biofuels.

Therefore, my work involves looking at the exact mechanism of the enzyme, which includes looking at the enzyme’s structure. To look at the structure of an enzyme, a method known as X-ray crystallography is used. This involves making crystals of the enzyme and hitting X-rays at it to get a diffraction pattern. From this pattern, its 3D structure can then be worked out.

My days vary depending on whether I need to run certain experiments in the lab, or make my protein to use for these experiments.  Making the protein can take up a lot of my time, so I hardly ever get to sit in the office during these days (although I make sure I stop for my regular tea and coffee breaks in the morning and afternoon!)  On other days I can be running experiments in the lab, analysing the data at my computer in the office, writing up results or reading papers to help me learn more about what I am doing or to see how other scientists are progressing in my area.