1. Environmental biodegradation, Biochemistry and microbiology: Our group is isolating microorganisms from industrial and domestic waste water and other environments that specifically degrade certain common chemicals. We have already reported a pseudomonas and an agrobacterium that degrade mono- and di-substituted aromatics. We are now looking at the gene level to study the enzymes that catalyze this metabolism.

 

2. Fluorescent Probes in Biology: Our group is interested in discovering new fluorescent probes. Our first generation probes are based on the fluorophore found in the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). The imidazolinone fluorophore is formed by the condensation of three amino acids in this protein. We have synthesized several imidazolin-5-ones and are attempting to recover the fluorescence.

 

3. Protein stability and folding: We are also looking at some hyperthermophilic proteins from the thioredoxin family to study their thermal stability.

 

4. Semisynthesis of selenoproteins: We are currently semisynthesizing selenoproteins by peptide- protein ligation. We are synthesizing the peptides containing selenocysteine by solution phase methods and ligating it to the protein produced recombinantly.

 

5. Analysis of protein structure: We are also analyzing the PDB databank for protein motifs. Our analysis is currently then being used to supplement our experimental work.