Protein design

Research project Protein design

Using computation to pre-screen the vast protein sequence space.

Due to the complexity of proteins it is not easy to (re-)design them. In collaboration with experimentalists, we employ our prediction approaches to 'filter' the available protein sequence space, so increasing the chance that the experiments will find a functional 'hit'. For example, in synthetic biology we are trying to crack how RNA Recognition Motifs (RRMs) work in order to design RRMs with specific RNA binding. We are now also working on the design of hybrids, where different proteins are 'merged' to create new ones with different combined functionalities.

People

Charlotte Crauwels
Ph.D. student

Gabriele Orlando
Ph.D. student

Daniele Raimondi
Ph.D. student

Wim Vranken
Principal investigator

Funding

G.0328.16N (Jan. 1, 2016-Dec. 31, 2019)
FoldMod - The role of local amino acid interactions in the folding of proteins, the stability of their fold and the location of post-translational modifications.

FWO-SB (Nov. 1, 2022-Oct. 31, 2026)
FWO-SB grant to Charlotte Crauwels to work on the design of hybrid GPCRs

Synthetic biology SRP (Oct. 1, 2022-Sept. 30, 2027)
Strategic Research Project (SRP) from the VUB with as topic 'Synthetic biology for the development of microbial cell factories'. Other partners are Eveline Peeters and Sophie de Buyl, both VUB.

Resources

No resources associated yet with this research project.