For the lawyer, district attorney, and judge in New York City, see John E. McGeehan.
John McGeehan is a Scottish research scientist and professor of structural biology. He was director of the Centre for Enzyme Innovation (CEI) at the University of Portsmouth until 2022 and is now a principal scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Colorado, US.
In 2018, McGeehan co-led an international team of scientists who characterized and engineered an enzyme with the ability to breakdown polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the primary material used in the manufacture of single-use plastic bottles and synthetic textiles.[1] The bacteria that produces this enzyme, Ideonella sakaiensis, was originally discovered and isolated in a recycling plant by a Japanese research group in 2016.[2]
The team at Portsmouth University, together with researchers at NREL and the University of South Florida, solved the high-resolution structure of the PETase enzyme using X-ray crystallography at the Diamond Light Source[3] and used the structure to design improved versions of the enzyme. The initial research story was covered widely in the press (The Times,[4] The Guardian,[5] and The Economist[6]) and television media (BBC,[7] ITV,[8] CNN,[9] CBS,[10] Al Jazeera,[11] and HBO[12]), reaching a global audience of over 2 billion people. The published research was highlighted in the Altmetric Top 100 of all published papers in 2018[13] and 2020.[14]
Plastics, including PET, while incredibly versatile, are resistant to natural breakdown and represent an increasing source of pollution in the environment. [15] Enzymes offer potential routes to breakdown plastics into their original monomers to allow circular recycling.[16] The team continues to make further improvements to these enzymes through the characterisation of natural bacterial systems followed by protein engineering in the laboratory.[17][18] Their latest work employs the use of AlphaFold from DeepMind (video) to uncover the 3D structures of alternative PETases, and other enzymes.[19] A driving force for the team is the use of technoeconomic analysis and life-cycle assessment to guide their research direction, and help understand the economic and environmental impacts of new recycling technologies.[20] Their current focus is on the development of circular systems and industrially scalable processes that reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and mitigate environmental pollution.[21]