Nabil Alhamwi

Bioinformatics Specialization · Cohort 2025

AI-Optimized Enzyme Design for Biomass Breakdown

Algae and aquatic plants are promising biofuel sources because they don’t need farmland or freshwater and contain both sugars and oils. Unlike food crops, they avoid the food-vs-fuel conflict. But their biomass is hard to break down due to tough cell walls made of cellulose, lignin, and complex polysaccharides. Current enzymatic methods are slow and expensive — enzymes like cellulases struggle with the diverse and resistant structures in these organisms. This inefficiency adds around $0.50 per gallon of ethanol, making biofuels less competitive with fossil fuels. We are building an AI pipeline that generates novel enzyme sequences that can make the plant breakdown more efficient. We will generate and evaluate those sequences using y-lab tools.

Mentor: Fares Fourati

Read the final report (PDF)

See it in the program report (PDF)