Miguel Alcalde Group

Research Lines

1. Fungal peroxygenases in synthetic chemistry


2. Enzymatic degradation and valorization of plastics

Plastic waste is one of the major threats to our ecosystems and the current end-of-life given to plastics negatively affects the environment. Indeed, the world plastic production almost reached 359 million tonnes in 2018 with Europe reaching 61.8 million tonnes. From the collected waste, 31.1% is recycled, 27.3% ends in a landfill and 41.6% is for energy recovery. Given the alarming situation of plastics, society is urgently demanding efficient tools to be used either for their complete mineralization, or ideally, within the scenario of economically feasible circular routes, not only comprising recycling, as it has been demonstrated that these are not enough for a sustainable end-of-life, but looking for new friendly environmental strategies which are able to overcome this problem. In response to the accumulation of different families of plastics in the biosphere, it is becoming increasingly demanded the engineering and application of enzymes acting as biocatalysts in its degradation. Our laboratory and our spin-off EvoEnzyme are intensively working together in this field of paramount significance.

3. Engineering the ligninolytic secretome



4. Laboratory evolution of iron-sulfur enzymes and carriers for isoprenoid production


5. Travelling back and forth along the temporal scale of evolution



Miguel Alcalde Laboratory
Institute of Catalysis, ICP-CSIC,
Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
Tel: +34 915854806
Fax: +34 915854760