Yew Wen Shan
Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Deputy Director, NUS SynCTI
Tel: +65 6516 8624
Email: bbchyws@nus.edu.sg

What are your present research interests?

My present research interests are focused on the use of structural and mechanistic enzymology for protein engineering, biocatalysis, therapeutic development and bioremediation.

Do you have a distinctive viewpoint to your research?

That synthetic enzymology, or the application of enzymological principles in synthetic biology, holds exciting potential in translational research, particularly in the areas of biomedicine and environment remediation.

What do you see as your future research directions?

: To use synthetic enzymology as an enabling platform in synthetic biology to drive the purposeful production of compounds of industrial, pharmaceutical and environmental importance.

Does your laboratory have a particularly strong research expertise?

We relish all things enzymatic! From discovering new enzymatic functions to deciphering enzyme specificity and mechanism, as well as enzyme design and engineering.

Recent Publications

1. Lim YP, Go MK, Raida M, Inoue T, Wenk MR, Keasling JD, Chang MW, and Yew WS (2018) Synthetic Enzymology and the Fountain of Youth: Repurposing Biology for Longevity. ACS Omega 3(9): 11050-11061.
2. Lubkowicz D, Ho CL, Hwang IY, Yew WS, Lee YS, and Chang MW (2018) Reprogramming Probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri as a Biosensor for Staphylococcus aureus Derived AIP-I Detection. ACS Synth Biol. 7(5):1229-1237.
3. Go MK, Chow JY, and Yew WS (2018) Directed Evolution of Quorum-Quenching Enzymes: A Method for the Construction of a Directed Evolution Platform and Characterization of a Quorum-Quenching Lactonase from Geobacillus kaustophilus. Methods Mol Biol. 1673:311-323.
4. Lim YP, Go MK, and Yew WS (2016) Exploiting the Biosynthetic Potential of Type III Polyketide Synthases. Molecules Jun 22: 21(6): E806.