Illuminating and designing specificity of protein interactions using computation and experiment
Selective molecular recognition of cognate binding partners and substrates (and non-recognition of non-cognate interaction partners) by proteins is a key feature of all natural biological processes and is generally a result of evolutionary selection pressure. The ability to predict and design interaction specificity of proteins has wide-ranging applications for biotechnology and medicine. I will describe efforts in the past few years from our group in which we use a combination of structural modeling, machine learning, and wet-lab experiments to illuminate the molecular basis of natural or engineered interaction specificities and use the developed models to obtain bespoke functional proteins. Implications for biocatalysis, therapeutics, and molecular evolution will be discussed.
Hosted by Professor Wilma Olson
~Coffee/tea will be served prior to the lecture~