The production of virgin plastics poses a monumental environmental threat. Global greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed alone to the production of virgin plastic material. Poor end-of-life plastic waste management and recycling solutions can mean that the overwhelming majority of post-consumer plastic accumulates as pollution, imposing untold environmental damage. Hear how Dr. Matthew Spence used Twist Synthetic DNA to develop a novel enzyme design platform for engineering poly(ethylene) terephthalate (PET) hydrolases that can rapidly degrade PET plastic under harsh industrial conditions while sharing only distant homology to natural enzymes.

Pichia pastoris (Komagataella phaffii) is widely used as a yeast producer of recombinant heterologous proteins of industrial and medical interest. Whereas some successes of this yeast exist, many target proteins often show low productivity.