Tapping into the Precision Molecule-Editing Potential of Halogenases
As seen in BioTechniques

What if you could edit a molecule with surgical precision in a single step, adding a handle at exactly the right position and building from there? It sounds simple. In practice, it’s anything but. And until recently, it wasn’t really possible at all.

Professor Rebecca Goss of the University of St Andrews has spent years frustrated by the limitations of conventional chemistry. Where making even a tiny variation of a molecule can take four years of someone’s time. That frustration led her to develop something new.

At ELRIG’s Drug Discovery 2025 conference in Liverpool, she spoke to BioTechniques about the precision molecular editing platform she and her team have built using a family of enzymes called halogenases and the spinout company, X-Genix, they are building around it.