Dr. Robert Kourist is a full Professor and Head of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria and leader of the area Biotransformation at the Austrian Center of Industrial Biotechnology. He received his diploma in Biochemistry from the University of Greifswald, Germany in 2006 under the supervision of Prof. Uwe Bornscheuer. He was a postdoctoral fellow in 2008 at the laboratory of Prof. Kenji Miyamoto at the Keio University in Yokohama, Japan. From 2012 to 2016, he was Junior Professor for Microbial Biotechnology at Ruhr-University Bochum. Dr. Kourist’s expertise lies in the field of Biocatalysis with a special focus on the development of chemo-enzymatic cascade reactions and light-catalyzed redox reactions. He has co-authored more than 100 publications and patents (H-index = 28).

RELEVANT LITERATURE: 

Drienovská I., Gajdos M., Kindler A., Takhtehchian M., Darnhofer B., Birner-Gruenberger R., Dörr, M., Bornscheuer U. T., Kourist R. Folding assessment of incorporation of non-canonical amino acids facilitates expansion of functional group diversity for enzyme engineering. Chem. a Eur. J. 2020, 26, 12338–12342.

Assil-Companioni L., Büchsenschütz H.C., Solymosi D., Dyczmons N.G., Bauer K. K.F., Wallner S., Macheroux P., Allahverdiyeva Y., Nowaczyk M.M., Kourist R. Engineering of NADPH Supply Boosts Photosynthesis-Driven Biotransformations, ACS Catal. 2020, 10, 11864-11877.

Biler M., Crean R., Schweiger A., Kourist R., Kamerlin S. Ground-State Destabilization by Active-Site Hydrophobicity Controls the Selectivity of a Cofactor-Free Decarboxylase, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 20216-20231.