Wochner A, Attwater J, Coulson A, Holliger P. (2011)
Ribozyme-catalyzed transcription of an active ribozyme.
Science. 332:209-1.
Attwater, J., Wochner, A., Pinheiro, V., Coulson, A., and Holliger, P. (2010).
Ice as a protocellular medium for RNA replication.
Nature Communications 1, art 76.
Ghadessy, F.J., Ramsay, N., Boudsocq, F., Loakes, D., Brown, A., Iwai, S., Vaisman, A., Woodgate, R. & Holliger, P. (2004)
Generic expansion of the substrate spectrum of a DNA polymerase by directed evolution.
Nature Biotechnol. 22, 755-759.
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Group Members
- Vitor Pinheiro
- James Attwater
- Aniela Wochner
- Chris Cozens
- Stefan Luzi
- Alex Taylor
- Sebastian Arangundy-Franklin
- Lukas Stadler
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| A critical event in the origin of life is thought to be the emergence of a molecule capable of self-replication as well as mutation, and hence evolution towards more efficient replication. We have built a powerful in vitro system for directed evolution, called compartmentalized self-replication (CSR), which mimics this process in the laboratory.
Our current focus is the application of the CSR technology to the evolution of novel polymerases with an expanded substrate spectrum. Polymerases capable of replicating non-canonical nucleic acid substrates have applications ranging from the recovery of ancient DNA sequences from archaeological and palaeontological specimens to ultra-bright DNA probes for molecular genetics.
Our aims are the generation of artificial genetic systems and the synthesis and evolution of novel, DNA-like polymers for applications in nanotechnology and material science.
We are also aiming to exploit compartmentalization for the evolution of ribozymes capable of replicating their own encoding sequence, with a view to recreate a modern equivalent of the primordial RNA replicase.
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  Synthesis of novel nucleic-acid based polymers. |
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Group Leaders 
