MPD

The DeLisa research group aims to engineer the protein machinery of simple bacteria for solving complex problems in biology and medicine. We focus on the molecular machines of protein biosynthesis both as a toolbox for the discovery, design and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals and as targets for reprogramming cellular physiology. One approach in our laboratory is to exploit untapped mechanistic features of existing cellular machinery such as intrinsic protein quality control mechanisms that ensure correct folding and assembly of native and non-native proteins. This approach is helping to illuminate important structure-function relationships for protein machinery and is providing a basis by which the machines themselves can be harnessed for producing novel biotechnological products. A second related approach is to engineer microbial cells with unnatural protein machinery, thereby expanding the repertoire of useful biological and chemical functions far beyond those bestowed by nature. Bacterial cells armed with these new functionalities are becoming a robust platform for the cost-effective biosynthesis of complex therapeutic proteins and vaccines.