iGEM Project 2020 - Functional Tuning of Metalloproteins
General, iGEM ·The iGEM team is a student-lead research and design team, focusing on engineering applications of synthetic biology. In 2020, we used protein engineering methods (Rosetta, GROMACS, Chimera) to construct a protein which binds more strongly to copper than any known protein. A detailed description of the project can be found at this link. As a team lead, my role was to spearhead the computational modelling of the modified system as well as to mentor team members in mathematical synthetic biology. I personally performed much of the molecular dynamics analysis in order to determine the binding affinity of the protein. I also developed a partial differential equation model for a packed column reactor designed to filter copper out of mining tailings. The project involved more than 30 team members, working on both the laboratory-based aspects of the project as well as the computational and software aspects.