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Star date of the project: 1st October 2012
The project aims to use new protein engineering and synthetic biology approaches combined with state-of-the-art protein analysis (including at the single molecule scale) to generate and investigate new protein scaffolds for new applications in material science and biosensing. Construction of active biomolecular components not currently present in nature is central to the emerging areas of synthetic biology and bionanotechnology. One of the most important concepts is to intimately couple normally unlinked properties present in different protein molecules or even materials. This opens up the possibility of constructing systems that act as novel sensors, energy transfer and transistor components for use in biological or non-natural contexts. For example, we aim to construct simple energy conversion protein scaffolds mimicking the high efficiency of complex photosynthetic systems that harvest light and transfer energy/electrons to a non-biological surfaces. Such proteins have the potential to be highly efficient bio-based photovoltaic devices that convert light to electricity.
The challenge lies in constructing a protein scaffold with the desired properties. To address this, you will use new protein engineering and synthetic biology approaches: (1) a ‘domain coupling’ approach that links the functions of normally disparate proteins; (2) a reprogrammed genetic code approach to incorporate non-natural amino acids into proteins during cellular protein synthesis. New amino acid chemistry introduces new functionality into proteins, including the ability to precisely define interactions with non-biological materials for optimal activity and interfacing. The constructed proteins will then be investigated using biochemical and biophysical approaches, including single molecule methods. This will include investigating functional integration on interaction with technologically important non-biological surface materials such as gold, carbon nanotubes and the new super-material graphene.
Funding Notes:
This is a 3-year studentship with full fees and stipend at UK/EU rate.
Eligibility criteria:
The applicant must be eligible for UK/EU fee status and should hold a First or Upper Second Class Honours BSc degree and/or a Masters degree, or equivalent degree. If English is not the applicant's native language an English Language qualification, such as IELTS is required. For IELTS an average score of 6.5 is required with a minimum score of 6 in each element.
To apply, please follow the weblink: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosi/degreeprogrammes/postgraduateresearch/howtoapply/index.html
References:
Della Pia EA, Elliott Ma, Jones DDa, & Macdonald JE (2012) Orientation-Dependent electron transport in a single redox protein. ACS Nano 6, 355-61. a joint corresponding authors. Perspective on this article in same issue.
Della Pia, E., Chi, Q.a, Jones, D.D.a, Macdonald, E.J., Ulstrup, J. and Elliot, M. (2010) Single-molecule mapping of long-range electron transport for a cytochrome b562 variant. Nano Letters 11, 176-82. a joint corresponding authors.
Baldwin AJ, Arpino JA, Edwards WR, Tippmann EM & Jones, DD (2009). Expanded chemical diversity sampling through whole protein evolution. Molecular Biosystem 5, 764-766.
Edwards WR, Williams AJ, Morris JL, Allemann RK & Jones DD (2010) Regulation of -lactamase activity by remote binding of heme: functional coupling of unrelated proteins through domain insertion. Biochemistry 49, 6541-9.