Congratulations to Paula, Jonas, Abibe, Norbert and Andrea on their new paper on the engineering of the PET-degrading enzyme PHL7, recently published in Nature Communications. In this study, the team combined computational design and structural engineering approaches to optimize PHL7, one of the most active known PET-degrading enzymes. The engineered variants showed improved stability and catalytic performance under industrially relevant conditions, representing an important step toward more efficient and sustainable enzymatic PET recycling. The work also provides valuable insights into the molecular basis of enzyme optimization for plastic depolymerization.
Link to the online article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-70868-4