Dr O’Reilly’s research interests focus on the development of biocatalysts and biocatalytic methodology for the synthesis of high-value chiral compounds, particularly those with interesting biological activities. Her research targets enzymes capable of mediating transformations that are challenging to achieve using more traditional chemical approaches, including transaminases and alcohol dehydrogenases. While these enzymes often display exquisite regio- and stereoselectivity for their native substrates, the scope of wild-type enzymes can be limited, and enzyme engineering is often required to broaden their substrate range and improve their properties.

Elaine is interested in engineering enzymes for applications in synthetic chemistry and in designing methodology to simplify their use, including the design of biocatalytic cascades to avoid protecting group manipulations and costly purification steps. Her key skills include synthetic chemistry; protein engineering; assay development; and biocatalytic methodology development.

Current projects focus on: (i) the development of a chemoenzymatic approach for the synthesis of iminosugars from monosaccharides; (ii) oxy- and aza-Michael chemistry for the chemoenzymatic synthesis of chiral nitrogen cycles; (iii) the design of protein catalysts from non-catalytic templates.