Department of Chemistry - PhD Student Seminar - Biocatalytic Strategies for Chiral Amine Synthesis

Student: Ms. Huiying QIU

Department: Department of Chemistry, HKUST

Supervisor: Prof. Rongbiao TONG

Abstract

Chiral amines are indispensable building blocks in pharmaceutical manufacturing: it is estimated that over 40% of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) contain an amine functionality. However, traditional chemical synthesis faces inherent drawbacks, including harsh operating conditions (high temperature and pressure), use of toxic transition metal catalysts, a need for specialized equipment, and often poor enantioselectivity. Enzymatic synthesis provides a powerful “green alternative” to these classical chemical approaches for the economical and environmentally benign asymmetric preparation of chiral amines with remarkable stereoselectivity. This seminar will introduce biocatalytic strategies for preparing chiral amines using a diverse enzymatic toolkit, including hydrolases, lyases, transaminases (TAms), imine reductases (IREDs), and reductive aminases (RedAms). These biocatalysts produce optically pure amines via kinetic resolution or deracemization from the racemates, or direct asymmetric synthesis from the corresponding prochiral ketones. The presentation will also cover the mechanisms of the enzymatic catalytic processes and highlight their practical applications in the pharmaceutical industry.