Accelerating Innovation in Diagnostics

Diagnostics play a vital role in healthcare, informing approximately 70% of clinical decisions. From detecting diseases to enabling precision medicine, diagnostics have the potential to save lives, reduce healthcare costs, and improve global health outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of rapid diagnostic innovation, showcasing how timely diagnostics can mitigate public health crises and support economic resilience.

However, over 80% of UK companies developing diagnostics are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which often face significant barriers in accessing the technical expertise, resources, and infrastructure needed to bring new products to market. CADDA seeks to address these challenges by fostering a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment that bridges academia, industry, the NHS, and regulatory bodies.

A National Effort with Global Impact

The CADDA initiative will harness the strengths of leading institutions in the North and South of England to ensure benefits are distributed across the UK. By providing SMEs with access to essential knowledge, infrastructure, and resources, CADDA will help overcome the fragmentation in the diagnostics sector that often delays innovation and increases costs.

Key stakeholders, including national and local NHS trusts, will be integrated into every aspect of the project to ensure that new diagnostic tools are clinically relevant, ethically sound, and compliant with regulatory standards. This coordinated approach will deliver diagnostics that meet the highest quality standards while addressing urgent healthcare needs.

Broader Benefits for Society and the Economy

In addition to advancing healthcare, CADDA will enhance animal health, strengthen biosecurity, and drive economic benefits for the UK. By enabling SMEs to overcome barriers to innovation, CADDA will support regional growth and position the UK as a global leader in diagnostic development.

Professor Mark Smales, from the University of Kent and co-Director of CADDA, highlighted the initiative’s transformative potential: “Through coalescing and harnessing the breadth of world class expertise in the UK across universities and research institutes, industry, SMEs, clinicians/end users, regulators and investors, we will be able to bring high quality innovative diagnostics faster to market; our medical community will be able to diagnose medical issues and save lives; and animal health and security will be enhanced. This will collectively provide wider societal and economic benefits to the UK.”

Professor Kathy Kotiadis, also from the University of Kent and co-Director of CADDA, added: “We are excited to support the business development needs of the diagnostics sector. SMEs often face significant barriers to expansion due to limited access to expertise and information, hindering their ability to introduce new diagnostics to the market, a gap CADDA will fill.”

Catalysing chemistry

S_NAr reactions are crucial in manufacturing many valuable products such as medicines and agrochemicals. However, conventional methods for carrying out these reactions come with major challenges. They often require harsh conditions like high temperatures and environmentally harmful solvents. Established methods of performing S_NAr chemistry often produce compounds as isomeric – two or more compounds that have the same chemical formula but different arrangements of the atoms – mixtures, necessitating the use of expensive and time-consuming purification steps. To overcome these hurdles, a team of researchers, led by and , have used directed evolution to develop a new enzyme capable of catalysing S_NAr processes. This new enzyme, named S_NAr1.3, performs a range of S_NAr reactions with high efficiency and selectivity under mild reaction conditions. Unlike traditional chemical methods, this enzyme operates in water-based solutions at moderate temperatures, reducing the environmental impact and energy required.

How It Works

As there is no known natural enzyme that could catalyse S_NAr reactions, the team initially discovered that an enzyme previously developed in their laboratory for a different chemical transformation could also perform S_NAr chemistry, albeit with modest efficiency and selectivity. By using automated directed evolution, the researchers were able to further engineer this enzyme to have the desired characteristics. The team evaluated over 4,000 clones before identifying an enzyme S_NAr1.3 that contains six mutations and is 160-fold more active than the parent enzyme. This enzyme efficiently promotes a wide variety of S_NAr processes and can generate target products in a single mirror-image form, which is crucial for applications in the pharmaceutical sector.

The Benefits of S_NAr1.3

S_NAr1.3 has a number of features that make it an attractive option for chemical production:

• Efficiency: the enzyme can perform over 4,000 reaction cycles without losing effectiveness, making it highly productive.
• Precision: it creates molecules in a single mirror-image form, which is critical for the safety and effectiveness of medicines.
• Versatility: S_NAr1.3 works with a wide range of chemical building blocks, enabling the creation of complex structures like quaternary carbon centres—a common feature in advanced drugs.
• Sustainability: operating under mild, water-based conditions, the enzyme reduces the need for harmful chemicals and energy-intensive processes, making it an environmentally friendly alternative.

The team’s work also sheds light on the enzyme’s inner workings. Using advanced analytic techniques, they uncovered how S_NAr1.3’s unique structure allows it to bind and position chemicals precisely, enabling its exceptional performance. These insights provide a blueprint for designing even more powerful enzymes in the future.

A Greener Future for Industry

The development of S_NAr1.3 highlights the potential of biocatalysis and provides a template for future development. As the world moves towards net zero, and industry is looking for ways to improve efficiency and reduce their environmental impact, biotechnology could be the answer to these pressing challenges.

“This is a landmark achievement in biocatalysis,” said Igor Larrosa, Professor and Chair in Organic Chemistry at The University of Manchester. “It demonstrates how we can harness and even improve on nature’s tools to address some of the toughest challenges in modern chemistry.”

What’s Next?

While S_NAr1.3 is already showing immense promise, the researchers believe this is just the beginning. With further refinement, the enzyme could be adapted for even more complex reactions, making it a valuable tool in drug development, agricultural chemicals, and materials science.

“The possibilities are just starting to emerge,” said Anthony. “By combining modern protein design with high-throughput testing, we’re optimistic about creating a new generation of enzymes that can revolutionise S_NAr chemistry.”

This groundbreaking research offers a glimpse into a future where manufacturing essential products is cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient. For industries looking to reduce their environmental impact while maintaining high standards of quality, S_NAr1.3 represents a promising solution.