Emma Master, University of Toronto

Professor Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry
Associate Director, BioZone Centre for Applied Bioscience and Bioengineering
University of Toronto
emma.master@utoronto.ca

Emma Master is a Professor at the University of Toronto (UofT). In July 2023, she became Director of the BioZone Centre for Applied Bioscience and Bioengineering at UofT. The aim of her research is to design and test enzymes that customize nature’s most abundant structural biopolymers, including cellulose and hemicelluloses, for use in renewable and value-added materials. Since 2011, she has also had a second research team at Aalto University in Finland funded through EU Horizon 2020 programs. To scale-up and de-risk most promising biotechnologies emerging from her research, she co-founded YZymes (i.e., “Why Enzymes) in 2021 to accelerate technology translation and benefits to diversified biorefineries.

Advancing industrial biotechnology in bio-based materials manufacturing

Advances in biosciences permit the rapid selection, design and production of biocatalysts in ways that have transformed health and pharmaceutical sectors. Likewise, breakthroughs in biocatalyst design and development can transform bioproduct sectors by expanding the range of materials that are sustainably manufactured from lignocellulose. So far, however, most applications of biocatalysts for lignocellulose processing still focus on its deconstruction to fermentable sugars for fuel and commodity chemical production. In this presentation, I will describe our efforts to develop biocatalysts that upgrade, rather than degrade, main lignocellulose components for value-added applications that increase the efficient use of harvested biomass.