ABSTRACT
Biocatalysis offers some significant advantages over traditional chemical catalysis from the viewpoint of both the organic chemist and the process engineer. For example, stereo-, regio-and reaction-specific catalysts, operating under mild conditions, enable reactions difficult to perform chemically to be carried out effectively with minimum side reactions and by-products. In the past 30 years biocatalytic processes have come to find application in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries as an alternative to chemical synthesis for high value products (in particular optically pure compounds) and today over 100 processes are operating commercially throughout the world. However, the majority of these processes are hydrolytic resolutions of racemic compounds to produce chiral synthons or optically pure products. Recent developments in biocatalysis will now enable the application of biologically mediated carbon-carbon bond forming reactions and redox conversions which is where the real power of biocatalysis lies.
