DeNovoLabs is building the PFAS binding and breaking science in public from here.
Published
Signal category
Research & Knowledge
Quote
“We're building this in public from here. The science, the milestones, the failures, all of it.”
— DeNovoLabs team
Company
DeNovoLabs
New-to-nature enzymes for the chemistry evolution never solved. PFAS first.
- Location
- Luxembourg, LU
- Company size
- 2 employees
DeNovoLabs designs enzymes that don't exist in nature. Every enzyme on Earth is a leftover of evolution, built only for problems life actually faced. Carbon-fluorine bonds were never one of them, which is why "forever chemicals" (PFAS) are forever, and why nothing alive can break them. We start from the reaction that has to happen, then design the protein and the metal cofactor together to make it happen. Our first program targets PFOA, one of the most persistent PFAS compounds. The same platform points next at plastics, carbon, and pharmaceutical chemistry, reactions that also have no natural enzyme. Where we are, honestly: we have computational designs that bind and orient PFOA around a reactive metal center, and we're in the wet lab testing whether they break the bond. We haven't proven degradation yet. That's the experiment we're running, and we'll share what we find. Based in Luxembourg. Building in public.