enzymie

Enzymie is a term used in speculative biology and science fiction to describe a hypothetical class of programmable enzyme-like catalysts designed to perform customizable chemical transformations. It is not an established term in mainstream biochemistry or enzymology, and there is no formal definition accepted by the scientific community.

In many imagined models, an enzymie would fuse catalytic functionality with modular control, allowing designers to assemble multiple active sites, regulate activity through external cues, and adapt substrate specificity without altering the core scaffold. Possible substrates and reactions would be chosen from within a synthetic or altered metabolic pathway; unlike natural enzymes, enzymies might be designed to function under novel conditions or in non-biological media.

Construction approaches are speculative, ranging from protein-like polymers to nucleic acid–based catalysts or hybrid materials that imitate active-site chemistry. Applications in fiction often include targeted therapies, smart biocatalysis in industrial settings, or diagnostic–therapeutic feedback loops. In real science, enzyme engineering and directed evolution explore improving natural enzymes, but the label enzymie remains fictional.

The concept highlights ongoing conversations about programmability, regulation, and safety at the interface of biology, chemistry, and engineering. It serves as a thought experiment about how designed catalysts could transform biotechnological development if such programmable systems were realizable. See also: enzyme, biocatalysis, enzyme engineering, synthetic biology.