Our lab has pioneered the development and application of methods for reprogramming the genetic code of living organisms.
A fundamental challenge in reprogramming the genetic code of cells is to direct the incorporation of non standard chemicals into proteins.
For this we have used manipulated the translation machinery in the cell introducing modified ribosomes and auxiliary components that run parallel with the normal translation. This parallel translation pathway can be assigned to designed new amino acids. Some of the work in the lab continues to investigate and expand the scope of this methods as a foundation for novel artificial biological systems.
We are currently applying genetic code expansion to multicellular model organisms to gain insights into biological phenomena.
A variety of projects are available combining engineering of biological systems and the development of innovative chemistry.
References:
Tang S., Beattie A. T., Kafkova L., Petris G., Huguenin-Dezot N., Fiedler M., Freeman M., Chin J. W.
Mechanism-based traps enable protease and hydrolase substrate discovery
Nature 602(7898):701-707. 24 February 2022
Dunkelmann D. L., Oehm S. B., Beattie A. T., Chin J. W.
A 68-codon genetic code to incorporate four distinct non-canonical amino acids enabled by automated orthogonal mRNA design
Nature Chemistry 13(11):1110-1117. November 2021
Robertson W. E., Funke L. F. H., de la Torre D., Fredens J., Elliott T. S., Spinck M., Christova Y., Cervettini D., Böge F. L., Liu K. C., Buse S., Maslen S., Salmond G. P. C., Chin J. W.
Sense codon reassignment enables viral resistance and encoded polymer synthesis
Science 372(6546):1057-1062. 4 June 2021
J.W. Chin. (2017)
Expanding and Reprogramming the Genetic Code.
Nature 550: 53-60