Supercomputers Help Design Mutant Enzyme That Eats Plastic Bottles

Scientists have used supercomputers to engineer an enzyme that breaks down plastic. It’s called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, and it’s used to make things like carpets and bottles for soda and water. This plastic pollutes the soil and the oceans. The scientists say it’s a first step toward recycling PET and other plastics into commercially valuable materials at industrial scale. They published their results March of 2018 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers took advantage for this study of computational resources of XSEDE, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, funded by the National Science Foundation. They used the Stampede2 supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and they used the Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. These systems helped them simulate the interactions of the plastic-degrading enzyme with PET. On the podcast to talk about their study are co-authors Gregg Beckham and Lee Woodcock. Gregg Beckham is a senior research fellow and group leader at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Lee Woodcock is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of South Florida. Jorge Salazar of TACC hosts the podcast. Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/