Graduate Student

Department of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room: 66-425
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA

Phone: (617) 258-8037
E-mail: tsmoon@mit.edu

Resume

Education
M.S. Department of Chemical Technology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2000
B.S. Department of Chemical Technology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 1998

Research Description
Synthetic organic chemists approach a synthesis scheme for a compound, based on the structure of the target compound. This retrosynthetic design is a powerful tool, giving organic chemists a lot of flexibility: a wide range of target products and a large set of possible synthetic steps. Despite this flexibility, chemical synthesis is not efficient when the target compounds are complex and have many functional groups.

To synthesize these challenging compounds, biochemists and metabolic engineers have recruited enzymes and have showed the potential of these biocatalysts. However, most biosynthetic approaches have been made by utilizing “forward biosynthesis,” a substrate-focused design of biological pathway, limiting the range of the target products.

My research focuses on combining these two approaches: retrosynthesis and biocatalysis. Using enzyme databases and genetic engineering techniques, including directed evolution, I aim to create novel biosynthetic pathways for highly functionalized compounds, not found in E.coli. Specifically, I will propose simple and economical pathways for glucaric acid, a highly functionalized chiral compound, as a retrosynthetic model. This research will provide a novel pathway design tool as well as an inexpensive synthetic way for glucaric acid.