Staff> Professor Gross

Professor Richard A. Gross
Herman F. Mark Professor
Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences
and Director of the NSF Center for Biocatalysis and
Bioprocesing of Macromolecules

The Polytechnic University
Six Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tel: (718) 260-3984, Fax: (718)260-3024
email: rgross@poly.edu

Group Focus

Research in the laboratory of Dr. Gross encompasses a wide variety of projects directed toward development of new enzyme and chemo-enzymatic strategies and methods for the synthesis of polymers for a wide variety of applications. Chemists, biochemists, microbiologists, materials scientists, engineers, physicists and clinicians work in teams on projects ranging from enzymatic and chemo-enzymatic routes to monomers, macromers, polymers and bioactive molecules. Novel enzyme engineering techniques and methods for enzyme immobilization are used to develop efficient catalysts that function under practical conditions. From these studies our group is developing fundamental new knowledge in enzyme structure-activity relationships for polymer synthesis and degradation reactions as well as an understanding of critical design elements that stabilize and activate enzymes on surfaces and within macroporous resins. Current research in our laboratories is underway to explore enzyme and chemo-enzymatic routes for:

• condensation and ring-opening polymerizations.
• vinyl monomer synthesis by selective acylation of natural building blocks
• controlled branching when using multifunctional building blocks.
• synthesis of oligopeptide building blocks for polymer synthesis/modification
• synthesis of functional bioresorbable polymers for drug delivery, wound healing and tissue-engineering scaffolds.
• engineering microbial glycolipids with important physical and biological functions.
• Control of polymer polydispersity.
• Incorporate of chemically sensitive entities in polymers (e.g. disoloxanes).

Engineering of enzymes (lipase, cutinase, mono-oxgenase (P450), and metallo-proteins) is also underway in collaboration with DNA 2.0. E mpirical protein engineering methods are being used to intelligently design small numbers of protein variants that are synthesized, expressed and tested for complex combinations of properties.