The central aim of his research is to develop methodologies and “rules” for enzyme design, and apply these methods to efficiently create novel and practical biocatalysts. His current research interest is in engineering proteins using directed evolution and rational approaches. His research goals include developing high-throughput screening technologies to assay mutant enzyme libraries to discovery novel biocatalyst; combining rational and directed evolution approaches to create de novo enzymes; metabolic pathway engineering in bacteria; novel protein display technologies; and incorporation of nonnatural amino acids in proteins.