Professor Tuck Seng Wong

BEng(Hons), MSc, PhD (Special distinction), AMIChemE

Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Professor of Biomanufacturing

Overseas Admissions Tutor

t.wong@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 7591

Room C58, Sir Robert Hadfield Building

Full contact details

Professor Tuck Seng Wong
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Room C58
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD

Profile

I studied Chemical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and graduated with first class honours in 2002. During my undergraduate study, I was awarded Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) by the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) and started working with Prof. Frances H. Arnold on directed protein evolution. My interest in protein science was kindled by this experience. Subsequently, I moved to Germany and completed my MSc and PhD degrees at the Jacobs University Bremen under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schwaneberg. Together with Prof. Schwaneberg, we developed novel tools for directed protein evolution including Sequence Saturation Mutagenesis (SeSaM) and Mutagenesis Assistant Programme (MAP).

Upon completion of my PhD (passed with special distinction) in 2007, I joined the research team of Prof. Sir Alan R. Fersht at Medical Research Council Centre for Protein Engineering (MRC CPE, University of Cambridge). My post-doctoral research encompassed characterizing proteins involved in cancers, ageing, and mutational diseases (particularly tumour suppressor p53 and mitochondrial DNA replisome) using advanced biophysical and structural approaches.

In 2009, I joined the Department of Biological Sciences at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) as an Associate Professor. In 2010, I was promoted to Acting Head of Department. In August 2011, I moved to the University of Sheffield (TUoS) to further advance my academic and research career. I initiated SURF programme in both XJLTU and TUoS to promote undergraduate research.

Research interests

The research in Wong group focuses on applying advanced protein engineering technique, specifically directed evolution, to tailor the properties of enzymes for industrial and pharmaceutical applications as well as to elucidate the design principles used by Nature. There are three key areas that we are currently working on: 1) Development of novel molecular biology tools to advance the field of directed evolution (e.g., method to create high quality mutant library), 2) Application of directed evolution to improve existing properties of industrially relevant enzymes (e.g., cytochrome P450s, carbonyl reductases, aromatic peroxygenases and hydrolases) or to create novel functions, and 3) Development of computational tools to facilitate/expedite experimental design (e.g., method to analyse genetic diversity). One of our current research projects is to develop biological carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU) strategies for bulk, fine and specialty chemical syntheses, capitalizing on our interest in directed evolution and synthetic biology.

Complementing protein engineering, we also apply a wide array of biophysical techniques to study various properties of biomolecules (e.g., structure, stability, oligomeric state, protein-protein interaction, and protein-DNA interaction etc). We characterize proteins/complexes involved in cancer, ageing and mutational diseases.

Research topics

Protein engineering (directed evolution)
Biocatalysis and industrial biotechnology
Synthetic biology
Biological carbon dioxide capture and utilization
Biophysics
Cancer and ageing

Research personnel

Pawel Jajesniak (Poland)
Hossam Eldin Omar Ali (United Kingdom)
Amir Zaki Abdullah Zubir (Malaysia)
Abdulrahman H. Alessa (Saudi Arabia)

Publications

Books
Journal articles
Chapters
Preprints

Books

Wong TS & Tee KL (2020) A Practical Guide to Protein Engineering. Springer International Publishing.

Journal articles

Price J, Wong TS & Tee KL (2024) Microbe development for the biomanufacturing age. Open Access Government, 41(1), 378-379.
Jajesniak P, Tee KL & Wong TS (2022) Rapid Cloning of Random Mutagenesis Libraries Using PTO-QuickStep, 123-135.
Athamneh K, Alneyadi A, Alsadik A, Wong TS & Ashraf SS (2022) Efficient degradation of various emerging pollutants by wild type and evolved fungal DyP4 peroxidases. PLoS ONE, 17(1).
Brojanigo S, Gronchi N, Cazzorla T, Wong TS, Basaglia M, Favaro L & Casella S (2021) Engineering Cupriavidus necator DSM 545 for the one-step conversion of starchy waste into polyhydroxyalkanoates. Bioresource Technology, 126383-126383.
Gonzalez-Perez D, Ratcliffe J, Tan SK, Wong MCM, Yee YP, Nyabadza N, Xu J-H, Wong TS & Tee KL (2021) Random and combinatorial mutagenesis for improved total production of secretory target protein in Escherichia coli. Scientific Reports, 11.
Unrean P, Napathorn SC, Tee KL, Wong TS & Champreda V (2021) Lignin to polyhydroxyalkanoate bioprocessing by novel strain of Pseudomonas monteilii. Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery.
Abdullah Zubir AZ, Whawell SA, Wong TS & Khurram SA (2020) The chemokine lymphotactin and its recombinant variants in oral cancer cell regulation. Oral Diseases. View this article in WRRO
Johnson AO, Gonzalez-Villanueva M, Wong L, Steinbüchel A, Tee KL, Xu P & Wong TS (2019) Author correction to ‘Design and application of genetically-encoded malonyl-CoA biosensors for metabolic engineering of microbial cell factories’ [Metab. Eng. 44 (2017) 253–264]. Metabolic Engineering.
Alessa AHA, Tee KL, Gonzalez-Perez D, Omar Ali HEM, Evans CA, Trevaskis A, Xu J-H & Wong TS (2019) Accelerated directed evolution of dye-decolorizing peroxidase using a bacterial extracellular protein secretion system (BENNY). Bioresources and Bioprocessing, 6(1). View this article in WRRO
Unrean P, Tee KL & Wong TS (2019) Metabolic pathway analysis for in silico design of efficient autotrophic production of advanced biofuels. Bioresources and Bioprocessing, 6(1). View this article in WRRO
González-Villanueva M, Galaiya H, Staniland P, Staniland J, Savill I, Wong TS & Tee KL (2019) Adaptive laboratory evolution of cupriavidus necator H16 for carbon co-utilization with glycerol. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 20(22). View this article in WRRO
Jajesniak P, Tee KL & Wong TS (2019) PTO-QuickStep : a fast and efficient method for cloning random mutagenesis libraries. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 20(16). View this article in WRRO
Tee KL, Xu J-H & Wong TS (2019) Protein engineering for bioreduction of carboxylic acids. Journal of Biotechnology, 303, 53-64.
Johnson AO, Gonzalez-Villanueva M, Tee KL & Wong TS (2018) An Engineered Constitutive Promoter Set with Broad Activity Range for Cupriavidus necator H16. ACS Synthetic Biology, 7(8), 1918-1928. View this article in WRRO
Tee KL, Grinham J, Othusitse AM, Gonzalez-Villanueva M, Johnson AO & Wong TS (2017) An Efficient Transformation Method for the Bioplastic‐Producing “Knallgas” Bacterium Ralstonia eutropha H16. Biotechnology Journal, 12(11). View this article in WRRO
Johnson AO, Gonzalez-Villanueva M, Wong L, Steinbüchel A, Tee KL, Xu P & Wong TS (2017) Design and application of genetically-encoded malonyl-CoA biosensors for metabolic engineering of microbial cell factories. Metabolic Engineering, 44, 253-264. View this article in WRRO
Jajesniak P & Wong TS (2016) Rapid Construction of Recombinant Plasmids by QuickStep-Cloning. Methods in Molecular Biology, 1472, 205-214. View this article in WRRO
Jajesniak P & Wong TS (2015) QuickStep-Cloning: a sequence-independent, ligation-free method for rapid construction of recombinant plasmids. Journal of Biological Engineering, 9, 15-15. View this article in WRRO
Jajesniak P & Seng Wong T (2015) From genetic circuits to industrial-scale biomanufacturing: bacterial promoters as a cornerstone of biotechnology. AIMS Bioengineering, 2(3), 277-296.
Warburton M, Omar Ali , Liong WC, Othusitse AM, Abdullah Zubir AZ, Maddock S & Wong TS (2015) OneClick: A Program for Designing Focused Mutagenesis Experiments. AIMS Bioengineering, 2(3), 126-143.
Verma R, Wong TS, Schwaneberg U & Roccatano D (2014) The mutagenesis assistant program. Methods in Molecular Biology, 1179, 279-290.
Tee KL & Wong TS (2013) Polishing the craft of genetic diversity creation in directed evolution. Biotechnology Advances, 31(8), 1707-1721. View this article in WRRO
Kuper J, Tee KL, Wilmanns M, Roccatano D, Schwaneberg U & Wong TS (2012) The role of active-site Phe87 in modulating the organic co-solvent tolerance of cytochrome P450 BM3 monooxygenase. Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications, 68(9), 1013-1017.
Lim EG, Wang Z, Tillo T, Man KL, Wong TS & Lai KW (2011) A novel radio propagation and radiation model of the wireless capsule endoscopy in human gastro-intestine (GI) tract. 2011 International SoC Design Conference, ISOCC 2011, 310-312.
Wong TS, Rajagopalan S, Freund SM, Rutherford TJ, Andreeva A, Townsley FM, Petrovich M & Fersht AR (2009) Biophysical characterizations of human mitochondrial transcription factor A and its binding to tumor suppressor p53.. Nucleic Acids Res, 37(20), 6765-6783.
Di Re M, Sembongi H, He J, Reyes A, Yasukawa T, Martinsson P, Bailey LJ, Goffart S, Boyd-Kirkup JD, Wong TS , Fersht AR et al (2009) The accessory subunit of mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma determines the DNA content of mitochondrial nucleoids in human cultured cells.. Nucleic Acids Res, 37(17), 5701-5713. View this article in WRRO
Wong TS, Rajagopalan S, Townsley FM, Freund SM, Petrovich M, Loakes D & Fersht AR (2009) Physical and functional interactions between human mitochondrial single-stranded DNA-binding protein and tumour suppressor p53.. Nucleic Acids Res, 37(2), 568-581.
Wong TS, Roccatano D, Loakes D, Tee KL, Schenk A, Hauer B & Schwaneberg U (2008) Transversion-enriched sequence saturation mutagenesis (SeSaM-Tv⁺): A random mutagenesis method with consecutivenucleotide exchanges that complements the bias of error-prone PCR. Biotechnology Journal, 3(1), 74-82.
Kuper J, Wong TS, Roccatano D, Wilmanns M & Schwaneberg U (2007) Understanding a mechanism of organic cosolvent inactivation in heme monooxygenase P450BM-3. J AM CHEM SOC, 129(18), 5786-+.
Wong TS, Roccatano D & Schwaneberg U (2007) Are transversion mutations better? A mutagenesis assistant program analysis on P450 BM-3 heme domain. Biotechnology Journal, 2(1), 133-142.
Wong TS, Roccatano D & Schwaneberg U (2007) Steering directed protein evolution: Strategies to manage combinatorial complexity of mutant libraries. Environmental Microbiology, 9(11), 2645-2659.
Wong TS, Roccatano D & Schwaneberg U (2007) Challenges of the genetic code for exploring sequence space in directed protein evolution. Biocatalysis and Biotransformation, 25(2-4), 229-241.
Roccatano D, Wong TS, Schwaneberg U & Zacharias M (2006) Toward understanding the inactivation mechanism of monooxygenase P450 BM-3 by organic cosolvents: a molecular dynamics simulation study.. Biopolymers, 83(5), 467-476.
Wong TS, Schwaneberg U, Sturmer R, Hauer B & Breuer M (2006) A filter paper-based assay for laboratory evolution of hydrolases and dehydrogenases. COMB CHEM HIGH T SCR, 9(4), 289-293.
Wong TS, Zhurina D & Schwaneberg U (2006) The diversity challenge in directed protein evolution.. Comb Chem High Throughput Screen, 9(4), 271-288.
Wong TS, Roccatano D, Zacharias M & Schwaneberg U (2006) A statistical analysis of random mutagenesis methods used for directed protein evolution. Journal of Molecular Biology, 355(4), 858-871.
Schenk A, Wong TS, Roccatano D, Hauer B & Schwaneberg U (2006) Sequence saturation mutagenesis (SeSam) of a gene. BioSpektrum, 12(3), 277-279.
Wong TS, Wu N, Roccatano D, Zacharias M & Schwaneberg U (2005) Sensitive assay for laboratory evolution of hydroxylases toward aromatic and heterocyclic compounds. Journal of Biomolecular Screening, 10(3), 246-252.
Roccatano D, Wong TS, Schwaneberg U & Zacharias M (2005) Structural and dynamic properties of cytochrome P450 BM-3 in pure water and in a dimethylsulfoxide/water mixture. Biopolymers, 78(5), 259-267.
Wong TS, Tee KL, Hauer B & Schwaneberg U (2005) Sequence saturation mutagenesis with tunable mutation frequencies. Analytical Biochemistry, 341(1), 187-189.
Wong TS, Arnold FH & Schwaneberg U (2004) Laboratory Evolution of Cytochrome P450 BM-3 Monooxygenase for Organic Cosolvents. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 85(3), 351-358.
Wong TS, Tee KL, Hauer B & Schwaneberg U (2004) Sequence saturation mutagenesis (SeSaM): a novel method for directed evolution.. Nucleic acids research, 32(3).
Wong TS & Schwaneberg U (2003) Protein engineering in bioelectrocatalysis. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 14(6), 590-596.
Gali VK, Tee KL & Wong TS () Crafting Genetic Diversity: Unlocking the Potential of Protein Evolution. SynBio, 2(2), 142-173.
Keita VM, Lee YQ, Lakshmanan M, Ow DS-W, Staniland P, Staniland J, Savill I, Tee KL, Wong TS & Lee D-Y () Evaluating oleaginous yeasts for enhanced microbial lipid production using sweetwater as a sustainable feedstock. Microbial Cell Factories, 23(1).
Johari YB, Jaffé SRP, Scarrott JM, Johnson AO, Mozzanino T, Pohle TH, Maisuria S, Bhayat‐Cammack A, Lambiase G, Brown AJ , Tee KL et al () Production of Trimeric SARS‐CoV‐2 Spike Protein by CHO Cells for Serological COVID‐19 Testing. Biotechnology and Bioengineering.
Wong TS () Carbon Dioxide Capture and Utilization using Biological Systems: Opportunities and Challenges. Journal of Bioprocessing & Biotechniques, 04(03).
Gonzalez-Perez D, Ratcliffe J, Tan SK, Wong MCM, Yee YP, Nyabadza N, Xu J-H, Wong TS & Tee KL () Directed evolution for improved total secretory protein production in Escherichia coli.

Chapters

Keita VM, Gonzalez-Villanueva M, Wong TS & Tee KL (2020) Microbial Utilization of Glycerol for Biomanufacturing, Engineering of Microbial Biosynthetic Pathways (pp. 245-302). Springer Singapore
Tee KL & Wong TS (2017) Back to Basics: Creating Genetic Diversity, Directed Enzyme Evolution: Advances and Applications (pp. 201-227). Springer International Publishing
Omar Ali H, Alessa AHA, Al-nuaemi IJ & Wong TS (2017) Protein engineering for lignocellulose degradation In Kumar P, Gurjar BR & Govil JN (Ed.), Environmental Science and Engineering Volume 8: Biodegradation and Bioremediation USA: Studium Press LLC.
Johnson AO, Gonzalez Villanueva M & Wong TS (2017) Engineering Ralstonia eutropha for chemical production In Zhang TC, Gurjar BR & Govil JN (Ed.), Environmental Science and Engineering Volume 10: Industrial Processing & Nanotechnology USA: Studium Press LLC.
Jajesniak P & Wong TS (2017) Tapping into biodiversity: From metagenomics to industrial enzymes In Gurjar BR, Kumar A & Govil JN (Ed.), Environmental Science and Engineering Volume 2: Biodiversity and Conservation USA: Studium Press LLC.
Tee KL & Wong TS (2014) Directed evolution: A powerful algorithm for advancing synthetic biology. In Singh V (Ed.), Biotechnology Volume 4: Applied Synthetic Biology (pp. 465-497). USA: Studium Press LLC.

Preprints

Gali VK, Tee KL & Wong TS (2023) Crafting Genetic Diversity: Unlocking the Potential of Protein Evolution, MDPI AG.
Sitompul SN, Price J, Tee KL & Wong TS (2023) Fast-track adaptive laboratory evolution ofCupriavidus necatorH16 with divalent metal cations, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Malika Keita V, Lee YQ, Lakshmanan M, Ow DS-W, Staniland P, Staniland J, Savill I, Tee KL, Wong TS & Lee D-Y (2023) Sweetwater: an underrated crude glycerol for sustainable lipid production in non-conventional yeasts, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Johari YB, Jaffé SRP, Scarrott JM, Johnson AO, Mozzanino T, Pohle TH, Maisuria S, Bhayat-Cammack A, Brown AJ, Tee KL , Jackson PJ et al () Production of Trimeric SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein by CHO Cells for Serological COVID-19 Testing, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Johari Y, Jaffe S, Scarrott J, Johnson A, Mozzanino TO, Pohle T, Maisuria S, Cammack AB, Brown A, Tee KL , Jackson P et al () Production of Trimeric SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein by CHO Cells for Serological COVID-19 Testing, Authorea, Inc..
Tee KL, Jackson PJ, Scarrott JM, Jaffe SRP, Johnson AO, Johari Y, Pohle TH, Mozzanino T, Price J, Grinham J , Brown A et al () Purification of recombinant SARS-CoV-2 spike, its receptor binding domain, and CR3022 mAb for serological assay.