Creating enzyme biosensors for winemakers
When Dr Lee Tejada was contacted about a project in enzyme biotechnology at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, it was a sign.
Lee graduated in May with a PhD in Biotechnology, working under the supervision of Associate Professor Wayne Patrick. She is now working to spin out a biotech company that will commercialise the results of her research and prototyping over the past three years.
Lee first met Dr Patrick at an international conference held in her home country, the Philippines. After striking up a conversation, Dr Patrick offered Lee an internship to work with him in his enzyme engineering lab.
Over the course of this internship, Lee fell in love with enzymes.
“You can’t even see them, but you can see what they do. They’re basically everywhere, in a sense that I feel like without enzymes, there’s no life,” she says.
After completing her undergraduate degree in Manila, Lee was still torn between studying medicine to become a doctor—like her three cousins—or following her interest in enzymes. When Dr Patrick asked her to move to Wellington and join him in a project making enzyme-based biosensors for winegrowers, “it was a sign.”
For her PhD, Lee created a product that winemakers can use to detect nitrogen levels in wine. Nitrogen is important as it is consumed by yeast during fermentation—the key process that converts grapes into alcoholic wine. The amount of nitrogen present before fermentation starts is crucial in determining the final product—too much or too little and the wine will be spoiled. Whether to alter nitrogen levels before fermentation to find this balance is one of the key decisions that winemakers make.
Current technology for measuring nitrogen levels is technical and inaccessible, leading winegrowers to send their samples away to commercial testing labs at a considerable cost. This is where Lee’s product comes in.
“That’s why we started this project, where we give the winemakers a test that they don’t need technical expertise to carry out.”
Even working with a team with many years of enzyme engineering experience, creating a biosensor product that people with all levels of scientific knowledge can use was tricky. It required two years of prototyping, being tested by winemakers at Blenheim’s Bragato Research Institute, Mt Difficulty, Palliser Estate, Māori Point Vineyards, and more.
But getting it right is one of Lee’s favourite feelings.
“I try to keep at the forefront of my mind that a high school student needs to be able to do this.
“Seeing the winemakers and the end users use the product and enjoy it is basically the best thing.”
Even though her life is markedly different from what she had envisioned at age eighteen, Lee has no plans to stop after graduation.
Lee and Dr Patrick are working on founding eNZyma, a company that will focus on enzyme-based biosensors and biotechnology and bring her invention to the public. With patent protection already in place, the pair are working with Wellington UniVentures and WNT Ventures to spin out from the university. Lee is also supported by the KiwiNet Emerging Innovator Programme and the Sprout Accelerator Programme.
Lee hopes that her technology will be used for not only winemaking, but in wider food and beverage environmental testing, and health diagnostic applications. The biosensor can easily be altered to sense other compounds like ammonia, and so may have uses in water testing to detect contamination from agricultural runoff.
Another goal of the company is to create jobs that offer a new, exciting, and future-focused pathway for Kiwi science graduates. Lee believes that eNZyma may be able to fill a niche in the market for high-value exports.
“Creating a high-value, near-weightless economy in New Zealand is what Wayne and I aspire to, that’s why we are in this together.”
The importance of community has been a constant theme in her studies. Arriving in New Zealand from a different country, Lee was thrown into the deep end—and not just with her academics. She realised on her first day in the lab that the clothes she had brought “weren’t going to cut it” for New Zealand’s winters. But Associate Professor Monica Gerth, joint leader of Lee’s research lab with Dr Patrick had her covered.
“The next day, Monica brought me a big bag of winter clothes. It felt like they weren’t just there for me professionally, but also in life.”
She is also especially grateful for the support of Dr Patrick throughout her academic career—from their first meeting when she was an undergraduate to now founding a company together.
“He’s kind of like my New Zealand dad.”
Her main piece of advice for all students is to take it easy and keep a broad perspective.
“Everyone says it, but I’m just going to say it again: it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
“It is hard to balance life and work, but always make sure that you take care of your mental health.”
The nature of her research certainly helped with this—Lee points again to the time that she has spent travelling, going to wineries to test her biosensors, and talking with winemakers.
“Sometimes it didn’t feel much like a PhD.”