Roelfes Group
@roelfesgroup.bsky.social
Interdisciplinary group at the University of Groningen @rug.nl working on Artificial Enzymes, Bioorthogonal Catalysis and Chemistry in Living Cells. Posts by group members. https://sites.google.com/rug.nl/roelfesgroup/
Is was our absolute pleasure to help organise the @eurobic18.bsky.social together with Sylvestre Bonnet @unileiden.bsky.social. Special thanks to @wesleybrowne.bsky.social and everyone from @stratinghinst.bsky.social @rug.nl who contributed to a very successful and stimulating week at #EuroBIC18!
A fantastic week at @eurobic18.bsky.social in Groningen! It was a great pleasure to present my latest research and also to help behind the scenes as part of the conference support team. This was also a very good opportunity to reconnect with friends, collaborators, and colleagues.
Happy and honored to present our work on metal-modified nucleic acids in a plenary lecture at @eurobic18.bsky.social in wonderful Groningen. A big thank you to @roelfesgroup.bsky.social and @sylvestrebonnet.bsky.social for organizing this great conference! 🧬
Welcome to EuroBIC 18! We wish everyone an inspiring week of science, stimulating discussions, and new connections here in Groningen. 🇳🇱🧪
See you at #EuroBIC18 next week in Groningen! I’ll be presenting my latest research on Wednesday morning. Looking forward to a great week of bioinorganic chemistry and catching up with colleagues!
EuroBIC 18 Conference@eurobic18.bsky.social · last mo.Welcome to the official BS page of the 18th European Biological Inorganic Chemistry Conference (EuroBIC 18), taking place in Groningen, the Netherlands 🇳🇱, from July 12–16, 2026. See you next week! Visit eurobic18.eu for the full programme, schedule, travel information, and other practical details.
Welcome to the official BS page of the 18th European Biological Inorganic Chemistry Conference (EuroBIC 18), taking place in Groningen, the Netherlands 🇳🇱, from July 12–16, 2026. See you next week! Visit eurobic18.eu for the full programme, schedule, travel information, and other practical details.
Strong presence of our current and former group members at GCEBio (Genetic Code Expansion in Biotechnology) 2026 in Amsterdam. We’d like to spotlight our postdoc @valeriapoggetti.bsky.social and her work on nucleophilic catalysis in thiophenol-based artificial enzymes. Brava Valeria!
Proud to share that another one of my main PhD projects has now been published! The manuscript entitled "Exploring PadR Proteins for Artificial Enzyme Design" is now available online in #ChemBioChem. Keep readin below or check out the full paper here: doi.org/10.1002/cbic... Thread ⬇️
Exploring PadR Proteins for Artificial Enzyme Design
Inspired by the Lactococcal multidrug resistance regulator (LmrR) protein scaffold, new phenolic acid decarboxylase transcriptional regulator (PadR) proteins were identified and evaluated as scaffold...
doi.org
⏰ Deadline approaching! The 15 March deadline for submitting abstracts for oral communications to EuroBIC18 is fast approaching! We are excited to announce an outstanding lineup of plenary and keynote speakers – check them out on our website: 🌐 eurobic18.eu
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Netherlands’ Catalysis and Chemistry Conference (NCCC), where I presented my research on photobiocatalytic atroposelective biaryl coupling. I’m excited to share that I was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry @rsc.org EES Catalysis Best Talk Prize!
📣 Thrilled to announce our incredible speaker lineup for the 2026 edition of #ETOC Online Symposium on April 29-30th.🗓️ Join us by registering today and to stay up-to-date! : tinyurl.com/ETOC2026-reg... (1/3)
🥳🥳🥳 Our study on engineering enzymes to break C–F bonds is out in @angewandtechemie.bsky.social. Congrats to the brilliant & dedicated @suzannejansen.bsky.social for taking this step toward the remediation of #PFAS & other contaminating organofluorides! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Engineering Fluoroacetate Dehalogenase by Growth‐Based Selections on Non‐Natural Organofluorides
We present a high-throughput selection system to engineer fluoroacetate dehalogenases (FAcDs). By challenging E. coli populations that produce diverse FAcD libraries to grow on non-natural organofluo....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Season’s greetings from the Roelfes and Mayer groups! 🎉🎄 Warm wishes to our colleagues, collaborators, and friends across the community for a joyful holiday season and an inspiring New Year ahead. ✨🧪
Our postdoc Valeria Poggetti @valeriapoggetti.bsky.social presented her work on Nucleophilic Catalysis in Thiophenol-Based Designer Enzymes at #NWOChains @stratinghinst.bsky.social @rug.nl
Last week I have defended my PhD in the beautiful Aula of the @rug.nl with a thesis entitled "Mapping the Sequence Landscape of an Artificial Enzyme". Such a huge diploma is proportionate to the immensely beautiful experience behind a PhD in the @roelfesgroup.bsky.social. Thank you very much to all!
📢📢 New paper out! AI and networks can be used to predict distal mutations in proteins, even in artificial enzymes! Check out the article here ----‐> doi.org/10.1016/j.ij... Thread 1/5 🧵
With #PFAS and other organofluorides wreaking havoc, we set out to engineer natural defluorinases for man-made organofluorides. All credit goes to the amazing @suzannejansen.bsky.social, who has outdone herself in this project! (1/5) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Engineering fluoroacetate dehalogenase by growth-based selections to degrade non-natural organofluorides
The widespread use of organofluorides in modern society has inadvertently led to the bioaccumulation of harmful pollutants, most prominently per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). In princi...
biorxiv.org
Our postdoc @francdefel.bsky.social just gave a fantastic talk on gold-based artificial metalloenzymes for asymmetric catalysis. #Biotrans2025 @stratinghinst.bsky.social @rug.nl
#Biotrans2025 Gerard just gave an overview on recent advances in non-canonical amino acids application for novel artificial (metallo)enzymes from our group.
#RepArtZymes pre-conference in Basel also brought together some of our old and current group members. @zhizhou1619.bsky.social @reubenlg.bsky.social
Our group members are attending #RepArtZymes Biotrans 2025 pre-conference. Gerard just presented our work on Artificial Metalloenzymes Featuring Thiol-Based Amino Acids. Compliments to the organisers #WardGroup for the fantastic program and a great get-together of the key players in our field.
Great experience at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference! Amazing time around a neat program. Extremely grateful for giving me the chance to share my work in an environment that pushes towards sustainable research #GreenChemistry #MSCA @acsgci.bsky.social @roelfesgroup.bsky.social
📢📢📢 PhD Opportunity! Join our research group at RUG! We're seeking a motivated PhD student for a project on biocatalytic cascade processes combining natural and designer enzymes, supported by machine learning. Click below to learn more — and feel free to share! sites.google.com/rug.nl/roelf...
Roelfes group - Open Positions
PhD position on Hybrid biocatalytic cascades aided by Machine learning (1.0 FTE)
sites.google.com
Very proud to share that one of my main PhD projects has been published in @chemicalscience.rsc.org, and that it has been selected as a #ChemSciPicks of the week paper! Keep reading below for more details, or check out the full paper for free online: doi.org/10.1039/D5SC... Thread ⬇️
Chemical Science@chemicalscience.rsc.org · last yr.Check out this week’s #ChemSciPicks from Gerard Roelfes (@roelfesgroup.bsky.social, @stratinghinst.bsky.social) et al.! ‘Genetically Encoded 3-Aminotyrosine as Catalytic Residue in a Designer Friedel-Crafts Alkylase’ Read it here for free: doi.org/10.1039/D5SC... #ChemSky 🧪
Check out this week’s #ChemSciPicks from Gerard Roelfes (@roelfesgroup.bsky.social, @stratinghinst.bsky.social) et al.! ‘Genetically Encoded 3-Aminotyrosine as Catalytic Residue in a Designer Friedel-Crafts Alkylase’ Read it here for free: doi.org/10.1039/D5SC... #ChemSky 🧪
Had an amazing week at #ACSSpring2025! It was an intense but incredibly rewarding experience with top speakers and insightful discussions. I'm grateful for the opportunity to present my research in the biocatalysis session - awesome interaction! #MSCA @roelfesgroup.bsky.social
Had an amazing week at the MetRaZymes @metrazymes.bsky.social Winter School in Hirschegg, Austria! It was a pleasure to learn, share, and connect with fellow researchers in our doctoral network. We organized and attended insightful lectures and workshops on ⬇️🧵
We are announcing about 30 PhD positions in the @fwf-at.bsky.social Cluster of Excellence Circular Bioengineering www.circularbioengineering.at/jobs 9 projects open in Progamme 2 (Self-Sustainable Microbial Systems) in 4 Austrian Universities
