Keynote lecture: Dek Woolfson

Title: From peptides to proteins to functions by design 

Abstract

It is now possible to generate many stable peptide assemblies and proteins from scratch using rational and computational approaches.  One new challenge is to move past structures found in nature and target the ‘dark matter of protein space’; that is, structures that should be possible from chemistry and physics, but which biology seems to have overlooked.  This talk will illustrate what is currently possible in this nascent field using de novo designed coiled-coil peptides and proteins.

I will describe our “toolkit” of de novo coiled-coil assemblies, and how we are converting these peptides bundles and barrels into single-chain proteins through rationally seeded computational protein design.  Then I will turn to subcellular applications.  I will describe two new designs for (i) de novo cell-penetrating peptides, and (ii) high-affinity kinesin-binding peptides, and how these can be combined to hijack and control active motor proteins in living cells.