Research

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Synthetic Biology underpins advances in the bioeconomy

Biological systems - including the simplest cells - exhibit a broad range of functions to thrive in their environment. Research in the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology is focused on the possibility of engineering the underlying biochemical processes to solve many of the challenges facing society, from healthcare to sustainable energy. In particular, we model, analyse, design and build biological and biochemical systems in living cells and/or in cell extracts, both exploring and enhancing the engineering potential of biology. 

As part of our research we develop novel methods to accelerate the celebrated Design-Build-Test-Learn synthetic biology cycle. As such research in the Centre for Synthetic Biology highly multi- and interdisciplinary covering computational modelling and machine learning approaches; automated platform development and genetic circuit engineering ; multi-cellular and multi-organismal interactions, including gene drive and genome engineering; metabolic engineering; in vitro/cell-free synthetic biology; engineered phages and directed evolution; and biomimetics, biomaterials and biological engineering.

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{MacDonald:2016:10.1042/BST20160155,
author = {MacDonald, J and Freemont, PS},
doi = {10.1042/BST20160155},
journal = {Biochemical Society Transactions},
pages = {1523--1529},
title = {Computational protein design with backbone plasticity},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1042/BST20160155},
volume = {44},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The computational algorithms used in the design of artificial proteins have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, producing a series of remarkable successes. The most dramatic of these is the de novo design of artificial enzymes. The majority of these designs have reused naturally occurring protein structures as ‘scaffolds’ onto which novel functionality can be grafted without having to redesign the backbone structure. The incorporation of backbone flexibility into protein design is a much more computationally challenging problem due to the greatly increased search space, but promises to remove the limitations of reusing natural protein scaffolds. In this review, we outline the principles of computational protein design methods and discuss recent efforts to consider backbone plasticity in the design process.
AU  - MacDonald,J
AU  - Freemont,PS
DO  - 10.1042/BST20160155
EP  - 1529
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 1470-8752
SP  - 1523
TI  - Computational protein design with backbone plasticity
T2  - Biochemical Society Transactions
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1042/BST20160155
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/39205
VL  - 44
ER  -
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