Development and Applications of Rationally Designed DNA Looping Proteins

Speaker: Jason D. Kahn, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park

Host: Arpita Upadhyaya, Jeff Klauda

Abstract: DNA looping has been a longstanding interest in my group. We have tried to loop along the arc of methods to structure to function to design. Along the way we discovered that protein structures that need flexibility to function for molecular biology may not be useful for technology. We therefore designed and expressed the world’s smallest, stiffest, simplest, most modifiable, and most-cysteine-less DNA looping proteins. We have since been exploiting these proteins in three areas: (1) fundamental biophysics using a topological DNA looping assay on a DNA length library, followed by high-throughput sequencing to analyze the results; (2) improving the efficiency of homology-directed repair by localizing a donor DNA template near a Cas9/sgRNA-induced double strand break, and (3) construction of protein-DNA nanostructures using simple interchangeable protein and DNA components.

Seminars start at 4:00 pm, and refreshments will be served at 3:45 pm. All seminars are held in the Conference Room (1116) of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST) Building unless otherwise noted.