Athavale, Soumitra

Short Biography

Soumitra was born and raised in Pune, India. Following BS-MS studies in Chemistry and Biology at IISER Pune, he travelled to the US for doctoral research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of Prof. Scott E. Denmark. Soumitra then joined Professor Frances H. Arnold’s group at Caltech as a postdoctoral scholar, expanding his expertise into protein engineering and directed evolution. He joined the UCLA department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as an Assistant Professor in July 2023.

Research Interests

The Athavale group utilizes engineered proteins and enzymes to address important questions in chemistry and biology. A major focus is combining synthetic organic chemistry and directed evolution for the development of new-to-nature biocatalysts to solve long standing challenges in asymmetric catalysis. The group has pioneered biocatalytic metal hydrogen atom transfer (BioHAT) as a platform for asymmetric alkene radical functionalization. Other research themes include the development of protein therapeutics, and exploring fundamental questions about protein evolution during early biochemistry. Further details can be found on the group website.

Honors & Awards

– C&EN’s 2026 Talented 12
– ACS PRF 2026 Doctoral New Investigator
– 2026 Herbert Newby McCoy Award “for the greatest contribution of the year to the science of chemistry and biochemistry” among all faculty in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department, UCLA
– National Institutes of Health (NIH) Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA R35) for Early Stage Investigators (ESI) 2026
– UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows
– Seaborg Award, Beta Gamma Chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma, UCLA, 2025
– Co-winner, 2nd Merck Compound Challenge 2020 – a global retrosynthesis competition that saw participation from 132 teams. Participated and won as a single-member team. The other winner was a ten-member group from MPI, Mulheim, Germany. News highlights by Merck, Merck India, Chemistry UIUC, Bio-Patrika.

Representative Publications

Below is a list of selected publications:

15. Biocatalytic Metal Hydrogen Atom Transfer for Asymmetric Olefin-Olefin Coupling
Mandal, R.;† Vallapurackal, J.;† Bossenbroek, J.; Poladian, E.; Rubio, A. V.; Halabi, R.; Skidmore, C.; Matone, G.; Houk, K. N.*; Athavale, S. V.*
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2026, 148 (23), 23428–23434.
† equal contribution

14. Biocatalytic, Asymmetric Radical Hydrogenation of Unactivated Alkenes
Vallapurackal, J.;† Mandal, R.;† Bossenbroek, J.; Rubio, A. V.; Poladian, E.; Collings, J. D.; Torres, C.; Hendrickson, M.; Morales, J.; Lyons, M. B.; Schultz, K.; Shafaat, H. S.; Houk, K. N.; Athavale, S. V.*
Science 2025, 390 (6777), 1050-1056.
† equal contribution

13. Directed evolution of P411 enzymes for amination of inert C-H bonds
Das A, Gao S, Athavale S. V., Alfonzo E, Long Y, Arnold FH.
Methods Enzymol. 2023, 693 , 1-30

12. Book chapter: Demystifying the Soai Reaction
Athavale, S. V.; Denmark, S. E.
in Asymmetric Autocatalysis: The Soai Reaction Soai, K.; Kawasaki, T.; Matsumoto, A.; Eds.,
The Royal Society of Chemistry 2023, ISBN:978-1-83916-261-9.

11. Enzymatic Nitrogen Insertion into Unactivated C–H bonds
Athavale, S. V.* ( * co-corresponding author); Gao, S.; Das, A.; Mallojjala, S.; Alfonzo, E.; Long, Y.; Hirschi, J. S.; Arnold, F. H.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144 (41), 19097-19105.
Highlighted by Derek Lowe – ‘Zapping in Amine Groups’- on his blog ‘In the Pipeline’ hosted by Science magazine.
Highlighted by Benjamin List and Marian Guillén in Synfacts 2023; 19(01): 0081 ‘Enzymatic Amination and Amidation of Unactivated Csp3–H Sites’

10. An Enzymatic Platform for Primary Amination of 1-Aryl-2-alkyl Alkynes
Liu, Z.; Qin, Z.; Zhu, L.; Athavale, S. V.; Sengupta, A.; Jia, Z.; Garcia-Borras, M.; Houk, K. N.; Arnold, F. H.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144 (1), 80-85.

9. Book chapter: Engineering Enzymes for New-to-Nature Carbene Chemistry 
Athavale, S. V.; Chen, K.; Arnold, F. H.
in Transition Metal-Catalyzed Carbene Transformations. Wang, J; Che, C-M.; Doyle, M. P., Eds.,
Wiley-VCH 2022, pp 95-138.

8. Perspective: Combining Chemistry and Protein Engineering for New-to-nature Biocatalysis
Miller, D.; Athavale, S. V.; Arnold, F. H.
Nat. Synth. 2022, 1, 18-23

7. Biocatalytic, Intermolecular C-H Bond Functionalization for the Synthesis of Enantioenriched Amides
Athavale, S. V.; Gao, S.; Liu, Z.; Mallojjala, S.; Hirschi, J. S.; Arnold, F. H.
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60 (47), 24864-24869.

6. Essay: The Katalytic Speedometer
Athavale, S. V.
Nat. Phys. 2020, 16, 704.

5. Structural Contributions to Autocatalysis and Asymmetric Amplification in the Soai Reaction
Athavale, S. V.; Simon, A.; Houk, K. N.; Denmark, S. E.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142 (43), 18387-18406.

4. Demystifying the Asymmetry-Amplifying, Autocatalytic Behaviour of the Soai Reaction through Structural, Mechanistic and Computational Studies
Athavale, S. V.; Simon, A.; Houk, K. N.; Denmark S. E.
Nat. Chem. 2020, 12 (4), 412-423.
Highlighted by Chemistry World (‘Mirror-symmetry breaking reaction’s mechanism solved after 25 years’), Science, Chemistry UIUC, Chemistry UCLA, Bio-Patrika.

3. Review: Quantitative Structure–Selectivity Relationships in Enantioselective Catalysis: Past, Present, and Future
Zahrt, A. F.; Athavale, S. V.; Denmark, S. E.
Chem. Rev. 2020, 120 (3), 1620-1689.

2. Unusual Kinetic Profiles for Lewis Base-Catalyzed Sulfenocyclization of Ortho-Geranylphenols in Hexafluoroisopropyl Alcohol
Robb, K. A.; Athavale, S. V.; Denmark, S. E.
Synlett 2019, 30 (14), 1656–1661.

1. A Versatile Toolbox for Posttranscriptional Chemical Labeling and Imaging of RNA
Sawant, A. A.; Tanpure, A. A.; Mukherjee, P. P.; Athavale, S.; Kelkar, A.; Galande, S.; Srivatsan, S. G.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2016, 44 (2), e16–e16.