Enzyme Catalysis Today and the Chemistry of the 21st Century

This book examines enzymatic reactions from the standpoint of physical chemistry. An introductory chapter gives a brief overview of the role of enzymes in metabolism, biotechnology and medicine, while describing the framework for chemical mimicry of enzyme reactions. Subsequent chapters of the book are devoted to a general overview of vital enzyme processes, methods of enzyme kinetic reactions, the theory of elementary mechanisms, oriental, dynamic and polar factors affecting enzyme catalysts, as well as the current status and prospects of enzyme chemical modeling. The book gives particular attention to chemical reactions highly important in modern research efforts, such as the conversion of light energy into chemical energy with a high quantum yield, photooxidation of water, reduction of atmospheric nitrogen, and utilization of carbon dioxide in ambient conditions. The book is intended for scientists working on enzyme catalysis and the adjacent areas such as chemical modeling of biological processes, homogeneous catalysis, biomedical research, biotechnology and bioengineering. In addition, it can serve as secondary instructional material for graduate and undergraduate students of chemistry, medicine, biochemistry, biophysics, biophysiology, and bioengineering.

​Gertz I. Likhtenshtein received his PhD (1963) and Doctor of Science (1972) degrees at the Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian academy of Science, Moscow. In 1976 this Institute granted him the Professor title. In 1965 he was appointed to the position of Head of Laboratory of Chemical Physics of Enzyme Catalysis. In 1992 Likhtenshtein moved to the Department of Chemistry, the Ben-Gurion University of Negev (Israel) as full Professor and was in charge of the Laboratory of Chemical Biophysics. He has been emeritus Professor since 2003. In 2015 he returned in the Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics as the director adviser.  Among his awards are the Medal of the Exhibition of Economic Achievement (1968), the Diploma of Discovery USSR for works on nitrogen fixation (1969) , the USSR State Price for pioneering research on spin labeling in molecular biology (1977), the Diploma of the Israel Chemical Society (2000), the Academician V. V. Voevodsky International Price for ESR in biology (2008) , the Medal from President of Academy of science of Republic Tadjikistan (2008) , the Academician N.M. Emanuel Golden Medal (2015). In 2018 Likhtenshtein was elected as the Foreign Member of Academy of Science of Republic of Tadjkistan. He was a member of the International ESR Society, the American Biophysical Society, the Israel Chemical Society and the Israel ESR Society. At present, his main scientific interests focus on mechanism of the light energy conversion and on novel methods of immunoassay, NO and antioxidants analysis. Likhtenshtein authored 13 scientific books and close to 490  papers.