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Keasling lab intelligently evolves proteins |
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February 2006 Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering Professor Jay
Keasling and collaborators have developed a technique to guide the
evolution of certain proteins toward a desired outcome.
Collaborating with Keasling on this project were graduate student Yasuo
Yoshikuni and Thomas Ferrin, UCSF professor of pharmaceutical chemistry
and biopharmaceutical sciences and member of the Bioengineering
Graduate Group. The results of this study were reported in the February
22 on-line edition of the journal Nature.
The researchers took a "promiscuous" enzyme from the Grand Fir tree, a
protein that can evolve into many different things, and were able to
substitute in amino acides to synthesize a group of very specific
hydrocarbon compounds.
This technology could be useful in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. Read more about this research at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. |
