Coupling chemical and biological catalysis: a flexible paradigm for producing biobased chemicals

- Produce biobased chemicals using both chemical and biological catalysis.
- Use biological catalysis to convert sugars to de-functionalized platform molecules.
- Upgrade platform molecules to final products using chemical catalysis.
- Approach highlights the strengths of each discipline and minimizes the weaknesses.
- Trifunctional species are likely an upper limit on useful platform molecules.