From biomolecular structure and function to programmable life
We develop de novo protein design methods for therapeutic and biotechnological applications, advance structural biology methods for high-throughput structure determination and extraction of dynamics from experimental data, and work toward the long-term goal of predicting and designing biomolecular interactions across scales: from individual molecules to cells, tissues, and eventually entire organisms.
Research themes
- Dynamics from real data — we extract structural heterogeneity from experimental data to describe real biomolecular dynamics.
- Programmable interaction design — we build user-friendly tools for designing biomolecular interactions for research and therapeutic applications.
- Toward de novo designed life — our blue-sky vision is the simulation and design of artificial cells, organisms, and programmable biology.
The lab is led by Principal Investigator Martin Pačesa at the University of Zurich, spanning computational biology, structural biology (cryoEM and X-ray crystallography), biochemistry, cell biology, and translational experimentation.