Research Interest

Enzymes catalyze the most challenging transformations, such as nitrogen fixation and methane oxidation, under exceptionally mild conditions. However, fully harnessing their potential for synthetic applications is still in the infancy. Dr. Runze Mao’s lab is focused on developing innovative biocatalytic strategies by integrating chemistry, biology, and artificial intelligence to address major challenges in synthesis, catalysis, and biomolecular engineering. By combining interdisciplinary approaches from synthetic chemistry, synthetic biology, computational chemistry, and computational biology, we aim to redesign and expand nature’s biosynthetic machinery to explore uncharted chemical spaces. These efforts will deepen our understanding of fundamental enzymology and reaction mechanisms, thereby advancing synthetic biology and facilitating the rapid assembly of molecules with biomedical and materials significance. Dr. Runze Mao has published 22 high-impact academic papers in enzyme catalysis and synthesis, including 11 papers as the first author in prestigious international journals, including Nat. Catal. (2 papers), Nat. Chem. (1 paper), Nat. Synth. (2 papers), J. Am. Chem. Soc. (3 papers), Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2 papers), and Chem. Sci. (1 paper).