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Organisers
Ugur Sezerman, Sabanci University, Istanbul Turkey
Rita Casadio, Bologna University, Bologna, Italy
Turkan Haliloglu, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
Azmi Telefoncu, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
Reinhard Sterner, University of Regensburg, Germany
Introduction
Protein engineering is a new field which aims to develop value added proteins for biotechnological and medical applications. To be able to develop valuable proteins one has to understand the governing rules of activity, stability, folding, protein-protein interaction and disease development.
Strategies employed in protein engineering can be grouped in two categories. The first category is rational design, which uses the knowledge of the structure and of structure-function relationship to make intended changes. Mutations chosen based on this knowledge can easily done by site-directed mutagenesis techniques which are well-developed. If there are enough known structures and sequences of the proteins with the desired property, one can find structural and sequence motifs that are important for the function and sequence using bioinformatics methods. But if there few known proteins it is difficult to determine the motifs. One major drawback of rational design is the difficulty of predicting the impact of the mutations on protein`s function and structure. This is mainly due to the lack of a good energy function that can distinguish optimal structures from similar suboptimal ones.
The second strategy is known as directed evolution. This is where random mutagenesis is applied to a protein which is followed by a selection regime is used to pick out variants that have the desired qualities. Over the past years, powerful ribosome display systems were developed that allow in vitro evolution of proteins. In these systems, techniques involved mimic the nature such as mutation and recombination to speed up the evolution process and increase the diversity of protein sequence in hopes of producing value added proteins. Then, several rounds of selection are performed to enrich for those proteins with new and specific properties, such as protein stability, folding and functional activity.
Rational design and directed evolution techniques are not mutually exclusive. More detailed knowledge of protein structure and function, as well as emerging technologies in high-throughput analysis, will greatly expand the capabilities of protein engineering.
The main objective of the meeting is to discuss new experimental methods, emerging technologies, new algorithms, software tools and their applications in protein engineering. In particular we aim to bring in some of the world ' s leading scientists who have made significant progress in (i) computational approaches that are used in finding structural and sequence motifs in proteins, (ii) computational approaches that are used in determining impact of mutations on function and stability, (ii)i molecular dynamics studies, (iv) molecular mechanics studies, (v) understanding the structure function relationship, (vi) protein engineering related databases, (vii) experimental approaches in rational design, (viii) experimental approaches in directed evolution, (ix) emerging technologies. Once the structure-function relation of proteins are better understood, one can hope to develop novel proteins for specific purposes, including enzymes for industrial processes and therapeutically molecules that could be employed as drugs for the treatment of a variety of human diseases such as several types of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and neurological diseases.
We hope that the meeting will not only bring in some of the world ' s leading experts and provide a comprehensive coverage of the computational approaches related to protein engineering as well as experimental approaches but also set up a forum for discussing some of the existing and future challenges related to protein engineering and emerging technologies.
The programme should be available shortly.
Speakers
Ugur Sezerman, Biological Sciences and Bioengineering Program, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey
Rita Casadio, Biophysics Department, Bologna University, Bologna, Italy
Reinhard Sterner, University of Regensburg, Germany
Turkan Haliloglu, Polymer Research Center, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
Azmi Telefoncu, Department of Biochemistry, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
Canan Atilgan, Material Science Program, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey
Christian Kubicek, Department of Computer Science,Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Leo De Graff, Molecular Genetics of Industrial Microorganisms Section, Wageningen University, NL- 6703 HA Wageningen, The Netherlands
Xavier Daura, University of Autonoma, Barcelona, Spain
Rainer Merckl, University of Regensburg (Germany)
Uwe Bornscheuer, Dept. of Biotechnology & Enzyme Catalysis, Institute of Biochemistry, Ernst, Moritz, Arndt University, Greifswald/ Germany
Piotr Zielenkiewicz, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland
Sandor Vajda, Boston University, Biomedical Engineering Department , Boston, US
The location of the workshop will be at Sabanci University Karakoy Campus.
Registration
Register here. Early registration is available until 31st March 2010.
