Design Novel Biocatalysts for Reactions Beyond Natural Enzyme Function

AI-Guided Enzyme Engineering for New-to-Nature Reactions

Many industrial and pharmaceutical processes require chemical transformations that are not efficiently catalyzed by naturally occurring enzymes. Advances in artificial intelligence, protein engineering, and computational biology now make it possible to explore and optimize enzymes for new-to-nature reactions—expanding the catalytic capabilities available for sustainable manufacturing.

Neoncorte Bio applies AI-driven protein engineering to help identify, redesign, and optimize enzymes capable of catalyzing novel or non-natural chemical transformations while supporting experimental validation through iterative Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) workflows.

What Are New-to-Nature Reactions?

New-to-nature reactions are chemical transformations that are absent or extremely rare in naturally evolved metabolic pathways but are valuable for industrial synthesis.
Examples include:
  • Novel carbon–carbon bond formation
  • Non-natural oxidation and reduction reactions
  • Selective carbon–heteroatom bond formation
  • Abiological functional group transformations
  • Expanded substrate acceptance for existing enzyme families
  • Catalysis involving synthetic or non-natural substrates
  • New stereoselective synthetic routes
  • Engineered metabolic pathway reactions
Engineering enzymes for these reactions often requires simultaneous optimization of catalytic activity, substrate recognition, selectivity, stability, and manufacturability.

Why AI Matters

The sequence space of possible enzyme variants is too large for exhaustive experimental exploration.
AI-guided protein engineering helps prioritize promising variants by integrating sequence information, structural biology, experimental data, and machine learning.
Instead of screening millions of random variants, researchers can focus laboratory resources on candidates predicted to have the highest likelihood of success.

Common Engineering Challenges

Organizations developing enzymes for new-to-nature reactions frequently seek improvements in:
  • Catalytic activity
  • Catalytic efficiency
  • Novel substrate recognition
  • Expanded substrate scope
  • Regioselectivity
  • Enantioselectivity
  • Chemoselectivity
  • Cofactor specificity
  • Thermostability
  • Solvent tolerance
  • Oxidative stability
  • Recombinant expression
  • Manufacturing scalability
Many projects require balancing multiple objectives simultaneously.

Application Areas

AI-Guided Enzyme Engineering for New-to-Nature Reactions
  • Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

    Engineer enzymes for non-natural synthetic routes to pharmaceutical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients.
    Benefit: Expand access to efficient and selective biocatalytic synthesis.
  • Industrial Biocatalysis

    Develop catalysts for chemical transformations beyond the capabilities of naturally occurring enzymes.
    Benefit: Enable sustainable manufacturing of high-value chemicals.
  • Synthetic Biology

    Design enzymes that support engineered metabolic pathways and novel biosynthetic routes.
    Benefit: Increase pathway flexibility and product diversity.
  • Specialty Chemicals

    Optimize enzymes for reactions involving synthetic feedstocks and non-natural intermediates.
    Benefit: Broader process capabilities and improved reaction selectivity.
  • Green Chemistry

    Replace energy-intensive chemical synthesis with selective enzymatic catalysis where feasible.
    Benefit: Support more sustainable manufacturing strategies.
AI-Guided Enzyme Engineering for New-to-Nature Reactions

AI-Guided Engineering Workflow

Neoncorte Bio combines computational protein engineering, structural biology, and machine learning to accelerate enzyme development.
Our workflow may include:
  • Protein sequence analysis
  • Structure-informed enzyme modeling
  • Active-site redesign
  • Protein language models
  • Computational mutagenesis
  • Virtual deep mutational scanning
  • Fitness landscape prediction
  • Epistasis prediction
  • Higher-order mutation prediction
  • Multi-objective optimization
  • Active learning
  • Bayesian optimization
  • Smart library design
  • Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) methodologies
AI-guided predictions help prioritize enzyme variants for experimental validation based on project-specific performance goals.

Engineering Objectives

Depending on the application, enzymes may be optimized for:
  • New catalytic functions
  • Improved catalytic efficiency
  • Expanded substrate scope
  • Novel substrate specificity
  • Higher stereoselectivity
  • Improved regioselectivity
  • Better cofactor utilization
  • Increased thermostability
  • Improved solvent tolerance
  • Enhanced oxidative stability
  • Higher expression yield
  • Reduced aggregation
  • Improved manufacturability
Multi-parameter optimization helps balance catalytic performance with industrial production requirements.
New to Nature Enzyme Engineering AI

Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) Integration

Engineering enzymes for new catalytic functions benefits from iterative computational prediction and laboratory validation.
Neoncorte Bio supports:
  1. Sequence and structural analysis
  2. AI-guided mutation prioritization
  3. Variant design
  4. Experimental characterization
  5. Machine learning model refinement
  6. Successive Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) cycles
As experimental data accumulate, predictive models can be refined to support subsequent engineering cycles.

What Neoncorte Bio Delivers

  • AI-guided enzyme engineering
  • Computational enzyme design
  • Active-site redesign support
  • Computational mutagenesis
  • Virtual Deep Mutational Scanning
  • Protein fitness landscape prediction
  • Multi-parameter optimization
  • Smart library design
  • Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) workflows
  • Confidential B2B enzyme engineering partnerships

Who We Work With

  • Pharmaceutical companies
  • Industrial biotechnology companies
  • Synthetic biology companies
  • Industrial enzyme manufacturers
  • Specialty chemical companies
  • CDMOs and CROs
  • Biotechnology startups
  • Academic and research institutions

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Neoncorte Bio

Where AI Meets Biotechnology
Neoncorte Bio is at the forefront of the convergence between artificial intelligence and enzyme engineering. Our team comprises experts in computational biology, bioinformatics, and machine learning, all driven by a mission to accelerate innovation in enzyme design. By leveraging our advanced AI models, we provide unparalleled solutions that enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and push the boundaries of what's possible in enzyme engineering
Proud Member of Leading Global AI Programs
Neoncorte Bio is part of the NVIDIA Inception and Nebius for Startups programs — two of the world’s leading ecosystems for high-performance AI innovation. These partnerships strengthen our ability to deliver next-generation AI-driven protein, enzyme, and aptamer engineering.
  • NVIDIA Inception Neoncorte Bio AI life sciences company
    As a member of NVIDIA Inception, Neoncorte Bio gains access to cutting-edge GPU technologies, expert guidance, and a global AI ecosystem that supports companies from prototype to production. The program empowers us to explore new AI opportunities and build high-performance biological design pipelines powered by NVIDIA’s world-class platform.
  • Nebius AI life sciences Neoncorte Bio
    Through Nebius for Startups, we gain access to high-performance compute infrastructure optimized for large-scale AI workloads, along with hands-on technical guidance and a strong community of innovative AI companies. Nebius enables us to train and deploy complex biological models more efficiently — accelerating enzyme, protein, and aptamer design while supporting rapid scaling of our R&D pipelines.
Publications
Scientific Publication of Neoncorte Bio Team
  • Modification of natural enzymes to introduce new properties and enhance existing ones is a central challenge in bioengineering. This study is focused on the development of Taq polymerase mutants that show enhanced reverse transcriptase (RTase) activity while retaining other desirable properties such as fidelity, 5′-3′ exonuclease activity, effective deoxyuracil incorporation, and tolerance to locked nucleic acid (LNA)-containing substrates.
  • The transcriptomic data are being frequently used in the research of biomarker genes of different diseases and biological states. The most common tasks there are the data harmonization and treatment outcome prediction. Both of them can be addressed via the style transfer approach. Either technical factors or any biological details about the samples which we would like to control (gender, biological state, treatment, etc.) can be used as style components.
  • List of all Neoncorte Bio publications dedicated to Molecular Biology, Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Neural Networks, published mostly by Nikolay Russkikh, CEO of Neoncorte Bio

Our Expertise in Action
With extensive experience in AI applications and software engineering tailored to the life sciences, we specialize in solving complex challenges and delivering innovative solutions for our customers. Our work demonstrates a deep understanding of cutting-edge technologies and their application in the real world.
Here are examples of the types of projects we have successfully delivered:
  • Automated NGS Data Analysis:
    Designed a production-grade solution for the automated processing, annotation, and analysis of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) data.
  • Single-Cell Data Integration:
    Built state-of-the-art tools for integrating multimodal single-cell data, achieving recognition for technical excellence.
  • Metagenomic Classification Algorithms:
    Developed advanced methods for classifying sequencing reads in metagenomics research.
  • High-Throughput Image Processing Pipelines:
    Engineered an efficient pipeline to process millions of sequencing images with exceptional accuracy.
  • Cell Counting via AI:
    Created a computer vision solution for precise cell counting in microphotography images, streamlining data analysis.
Get in touch with our team
Phone: +1-503-754-3958
Email: contact@neoncorte.com