CAREER: Directed Evolution for Gene Delivery and Bioengineering

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

PI proposes to apply directed evolution to a novel direction of research: the improvement of viral gene delivery vehicles for gene therapy. In addition to generating vectors with enhanced performance, their approach may yield further insights into the biology of retroviruses. They plan develop both the lecture and laboratory course curriculum of the biotechnology focus of the undergraduate chemical engineering major to reflect the growing importance of diversity and directed evolution. In addition, they will create a graduate elective course in bioengineering that covers combinatorial chemistry and directed evolution, as well as the thematically related area of bioinformatics. Developing this curriculum would be part of our overall goal to train graduate and undergraduate students in the methods and practice of research. Their specific objectives of this proposal are: 1) To determine whether evolution of retroviral proteins can improve the efficiency and ease of production of retroviral vectors 2) To examine if evolution of non-coding retroviral regions can overcome problems associated with safety and stability of expression after gene delivery 3) To develop the undergraduate biotechnology option lecture and laboratory course material to cover the importance of diversity in bioengineering and biotechnology 4) To develop a graduate elective course that integrates the topics of bioinformatics, biodiversity, combinatorial chemistry, and directed evolution.