The research done in Dr. Jurak's group (Department of Chemical Engineering, ENTEG) focuses on the biocatalysis and enzyme discovery for modification of complex polymers such as carbohydrates and plastics.

The more fundamental research is directed towards understanding how microbial enzymes work and work together (gene clusters) to modify given polymers. Large focus area is understanding enzyme function, structure and properties, studying natural diversity of enzymes, and getting insights into the changes of the polymer structure and physical properties upon the enzyme’s action.

Examples are 1) the structure-function relationship of GH13 and GH57 microbial glycogen branching enzymes. 2) unravelling the function of uncharacterized enzymes from plant biomass related GH families and proteins of unknown function (PUFs) from bacterial gene clusters through transcriptomic and sequence analysis and in-depth biochemical characterization. 3) biocatalysis of plastic polymers (PVC).