Zubaida Gulshan Kazi

Our society is moving towards renewable resources, where chemicals and fuel are being produced by Biomass. Specifically, biomass rich in carbohydrates has been the main focus in biorefinery industries and most of them are from forestry waste, agro-industrial waste and by-products. However, one of the main challenges that limit the utilization of ‘sugar-platform’ is processing of the biomass to obtain products with industrial interest.Thermostable glycoside hydrolases (GHs) has been used widely for biomass saccharification.The need of characterizing new thermostable GHs is yet very demanding, particularly when researchers are trying to make cost effective process.

My research project is about finding novel retaining glycoside hydrolases and utilizing their transglycosylation activity as a tool to utilize sugar-platform and promoting conversion of novel types of products, such as synthesis of oligosaccharides and alkyl glycosides (APGs & APXs) or glycosylation of polyphenols.