Protein tools for programming cell behavior in synthetic biology

Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems, and the re-design of existing natural biological systems for useful purposes. In order for these tasks to become possible, tools need to be developed which will allow control over living systems. Since proteins are the functional molecule of life, control and programming of living systems relies on the development of appropriate tools with which protein activity can be precisely regulated. In this work, we propose the development of protein-based molecular switches which will allow rapid and specific control over the function of arbitrary protein targets. These new engineered parts will then be used to achieve precisely programmed behavior in living bacterial cells. We anticipate that the herein developed protein parts will become valuable tools for synthetic biology applications.

This project was evaluated and funded as part of the Foundation’s effort to support research teams with all their members being under 40 years old.