Research summary
Functional proteins, such as antibodies, enzymes, motor proteins and receptor molecules, are of great interest in industrial and medical biotechnology because their properties can be harnessed to create biocatalysts, biosensors and more. While considerable research has been done to better understand protein function in liquid environments, interactions between these proteins and solids are poorly understood. As Canada Research Chair in Synthetic Biology, Dr. Adam Damry aims to fill this knowledge gap.
Damry and his research team are using a combination of synthetic biology and computational methods to create and study new biocatalysts that interact productively with solid substrates (the surfaces on which organisms live) or functional scaffolds (devices that exploit specific and complex physical and biological functions). Ultimately, their findings will open the door to the development of countless new industrial bioprocesses and biomedical tools.