CAREER: Engineering Light-Controlled Proteins for Sustainable Biomanufacturing

Enzymes can catalyze reactions that produce chemicals, fuels, and pharmaceuticals. Such reactions tend to occur at mild temperatures and without the use of hazardous solvents. This reduces energy and product purification costs. Enzyme activity is usually controlled by molecular interactions. These are hard to regulate in a reactor. This CAREER project will investigate a strategy to make the enzymes sensitive to different wavelengths of light. This approach will enable rapid control over enzyme-driven reactions in manufacturing processes. Biotech workforce development is also planned. It will be accomplished through engagement with community college students and faculty in a week-long protein engineering workshop. Light-activated domains will be incorporated into regions of the protein that affect enzyme activity. The ability of these domains to modulate enzymatic activity will be evaluated. The intent will be to create domains that reversibly couple two distinct yet complementary proteins, and that modulate protein sequestration on a surface. Expanding the range of light-activated proteins to include green, red, and near infrared light will be another major thrust of the project. To accomplish this, a variety of photoswitches will be covalently attached to de novo protein structures. The approach will be validated using biomineralization. Enhancing the performance of optoelectronic nanomaterial synthesis could improve the quality and functional performance of quantum dots, nanowires, and other inorganic nanostructures. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.