Ideation Team

Protein Engineering

Project Leads: Isha Soni, Amad Jalil

The directed evolution (DE) team is engineering a more thermostable form of the protein IscB-wRNA, an evolutionary precursor to Cas9 that has a range of biotechnological applications. Using site-saturation mutagenesis and a toxin-antitoxin system, we aim to create a form of this protein that can be used at 37 degrees C in laboratory conditions. Because IscB-wRNA carries out the same function as Cas9 but is a much smaller protein, it can be delivered into human cells more easily, opening the door to a host of genetic editing and therapeutic applications.