Professor Ross Anderson
BSc, PhD(H.-W.)
Current positions
Professor of Biological Chemistry
School of Biochemistry
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
The design of new proteins and enzymes remains one of the great challenges in biochemistry and tests our fundamental understanding of both the nature of protein as a material and the principles of enzymatic catalysis. Unlocking the exceptionally diverse and powerful array of chemistries exhibited by natural enzymes promises routes to new drugs, therapies and green industrial processes.
Most approaches to this end have focused on modifying natural enzymes to impart new or altered catalytic function. The problems that often hinder the re-engineering of naturally evolved proteins and enzymes are due to the layers of complexity that nature incorporates through natural selection into a protein’s complex 3D structure.
Simplified manmade protein scaffolds offer a means to avoid such complexity, learn the principles guiding functional protein assembly and render the modular assembly of enzymatic function a tangible reality. This approach is illustrated through the assembly of artificial oxygen binding proteins that reproduce the function of natural proteins such as myoglobin in simple heme-binding 4-helix bundles untouched by natural selection. The tractable design process that we employ resolves the roles of individual amino acids with their function and opens the door to the powerful oxygenic catalysis common to heme-containing enzymes.
In my laboratory, we use this simple protein design approach to construct artificial oxidoreductase enzymes that integrate functional elements common to natural redox enzymes - e.g. electron/proton transfer, ligand/substrate binding and light harvesting - in a discrete manmade protein that is wholly fabricated within a living organism.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Creating and comprehending the circuitry of life: precise biomolecular design of multi-centre redox enzymes for a synthetic metabolism
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of BiochemistryDates
01/08/2022 to 31/07/2027
Creating and comprehending the circuitry of life: precise biomolecular design of multi-centre redox enzymes for a synthetic metabolism
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of BiochemistryDates
01/08/2022 to 31/07/2027
Construction of catalytically proficient enzymes from de novo designed proteins
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of BiochemistryDates
01/11/2018 to 31/03/2022
Construction of catalytically proficient enzymes from de novo designed proteins
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of BiochemistryDates
01/09/2018 to 31/08/2021
Building a Solar-Powered, Carbon-Fixing Protoalgae
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of BiochemistryDates
02/11/2015 to 01/11/2018
Thesis supervisions
Conformational Control of Modular Proteins
Supervisors
Computational Design and Structural Characterization of de novo Heme Maquettes
Supervisors
Computational design, construction, and characterisation of artificial peroxidases
Supervisors
Constructs for the detoxification of organophosphorous compounds
Supervisors
Effects of organic cosolvents on a de novo designed heme peroxidase
Supervisors
A Promiscuous and Catalytically Proficient <i>De Novo</i> Carbene Transferase
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
18/04/2023Cellular production of a de novo membrane cytochrome
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Structure and Dynamics of Three Escherichia coli NfsB Nitro-Reductase Mutants Selected for Enhanced Activity with the Cancer Prodrug CB1954
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists are Monoamine Oxidase-A Selective Inhibitors
FEBS Journal
Expression and In Vivo Loading of De Novo Proteins with Tetrapyrrole Cofactors
Enzyme Engineering
Beneficial substrate partitioning boosts non-aqueous catalysis in de novo enzyme-alginate beads
Beneficial substrate partitioning boosts non-aqueous catalysis in de novo enzyme-alginate beads