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Research Area D

Design of Macromolecular Complexes

In this research area, CEF scientists used their insights of specific macromolecular complexes gained in CEF-I to deduce predictions about how to modify protein complex function, and test and realize these predictions experimentally. They made important achievements in a number of subjects that led them to define research area D as a new emerging field in CEF-II. Exogenous and precise control of macromolecular function was achieved using optogenetics and chemical biology, to organize components of macromolecular complexes in time and space such that their interactions can be controlled or triggered. Members of CEF have established the use of rhodopsins to manipulate cellular membrane potential by light and to trigger cellular function, e.g. in neurons. They combined rhodopsins with endogenous channel complexes to achieve new light-triggered currents. Modular multienzymatic "assembly lines" were altered to help generate molecular factories for specific compounds. Approaches in Area D required know-how in protein modeling and design, various spectroscopic methods, electron microscopy, structural biology, photobiology, and atomic force microscopy.