Concentrically electrospun active enzyme fibers

Enzymes, nature's catalysts, facilitate a wide range of chemical transformations that are required for life. Their high selectivity and efficiency come at the cost of stability. The great cost of purifying and isolating enzymes make them prohibitively expensive when considering their relatively short lifetimes. To overcome this disadvantage, developments in the immobilization and stabilization of enzymes have emerged from a wide host of materials. This body of work describes the recent advances in the immobilization of enzymes including in the form of a fiber. Active enzyme fibers are desirable as they provide an easily handled and reusable enzyme fiber mat. This can be done indirectly by templating the enzyme with the electrospinning technique. For the first time, active enzyme fibers have been generated and their activity reported.