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Dr. Hiep-Hoa
T. Nguyen,
Dr. Hiep-Hoa
T. Nguyen, Business Official, hiephoa@its.caltech.edu
DOE Grant No.
DE-FG02-05ER84304
Amount: $100,000
The
majority of membrane proteins are very difficult to obtain in significant
quantities, even at milligram scale, because their natural biosynthesis levels
often are very low and currently available protein expression systems are not
effective for membrane proteins. The
lack of effective method for preparative-scale membrane protein synthesis
hampers progress toward a complete understanding of the proteome and prevents
the exploitation of available sequences, especially those membrane proteins
which constitute the majority of drug targets.
This project will develop an in
vivo membrane protein expression system for synthesizing any desired
protein on a preparative scale, providing
recombinant membrane proteins at quantities (grams) comparable to current
soluble protein expression systems.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The proposed membrane protein expression system should occupy an important niche market where current expression systems are not effective. The system should find use in the large-scale production of medicinally important membrane proteins that are very difficult to prepare. The recombinant membrane proteins could be used in high throughput screening, in structural biology of membrane proteins crucial to structure-based drug design endeavors, and in structural genomics efforts of membrane proteins. Reagents associated with the system could be made available for use by the research community.