Join us for a Special Seminar. Hosted by the Departments of Bioengineering and Chemistry
Elisabeth Garanger, PhD
Research Director at Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques (LCPO)
University of Bordeaux
Monday, February 3
2:00 – 3:00 PM
425 Latimer Hall, UC Berkeley
“Post-modifications of recombinant elastin-like polypeptides towards bioactive self-assembled (nano)materials”
Abstract:
Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are thermo-responsive biopolymers whose primary sequence is derived from a natural extracellular matrix protein (elastin). Genetically-engineered and produced recombinantly in heterologous hosts (typically Escherichia coli bacteria to ensure reasonable production yields), they are perfectly monodisperse macromolecules. Although powerful to yield ELPs with exact primary structures and lengths, protein engineering techniques present however some limitations, in particular lengthy bacterial cloning steps and limited chemical diversity due to few possible post-translational modifications in E. coli bacteria.
My research activities are therefore dedicated to exploring a dual biotechnological and chemical approach, combining recombinant biosynthesis of ELPs in E. coli with orthogonal chemical bioconjugation methods to enlarge the diversity of relevant ELP-based macromolecules and self-assemblies thereof for biomimetic, biological and/or biomedical applications.
My presentation will provide an overview of these works and detail a few selected examples in these different fields.
Short Bio:
Dr. E. Garanger is a tenured researcher at CNRS since 2012. She received a PhD in Chemistry & Biology in 2005 from the University of Grenoble achieving a comprehensive study on peptide-based nanocarriers targeting tumors and their associated neo-angiogenesis. She pursued her career at Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School as post-doctoral fellow working on the design of contrast agents for multimodal molecular imaging. She joined the Laboratory of Organic Polymer Chemistry (LCPO) in 2009 as post-doc and the European Institute of Chemistry and Biology (IECB) in 2010 as project leader to develop bioactive amphiphilic peptide-based block copolymers. Her current research activities focus on the design of recombinant elastin-like polypeptides and bioconjugates thereof for the design of smart biomaterials and drug delivery systems.