Prof. Christian Becker, University of Vienna, Austria

Protein (Semi-)Synthesis - Providing Tailor-Made Proteins for Biology and Medicine

 

Start Date 04.04.2023 - 16:30
Event End 04.04.2023 - 17:30
Location University of Zurich, Department of Chemistry
Lecture Hall Y15-G-40

The ability to produce proteins in the laboratory and to change their structures and therefore their properties in a controlled fashion is of crucial importance in basic biological research, in biotechnology and increasingly in medical applications. I will discuss our latest efforts to use chemoselective ligation methods to assemble homogeneous, site-specifically modified proteins from peptides made by solid phase synthesis and from protein segments produced by expression.
Examples that involve the (semi-)synthesis of proteins with specific posttranslational modifications, including lipidation, phosphorylation as well as so far rarely investigated non-enzymatic protein modifications will be presented. The resulting proteins represent unique tools to address open questions related to specific modifications of amino acid side chains, e.g. in cellular recognition, aging and neurodegenerative diseases.