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SUMMARY:LMB Seminar Series - Francis Crick Lecture - Innovation by Evoluti
 on: Bringing New Chemistry to Life - Frances Arnold\, California Institute
  of Technology\, Pasadena\, U.S.A.
DTSTART:20190718T150000Z
DTEND:20190718T160000Z
UID:TALK124648@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Scientific Meetings Co-ordinator
DESCRIPTION:Not satisfied with nature’s vast catalyst repertoire\, we wa
 nt to create new protein catalysts and expand the space of genetically enc
 oded enzyme functions. I will describe how we can use the most powerful bi
 ological design process\, evolution\, to optimize existing enzymes and inv
 ent new ones\, thereby circumventing our profound ignorance of how sequenc
 e encodes function. Using mechanistic understanding and mimicking nature
 ’s evolutionary processes\, we can generate whole new enzyme families th
 at catalyze synthetically important reactions not known in biology. Recent
  successes include selective carbene insertion to form C-Si and C-B bonds\
 , and alkyne cyclopropanation to make highly strained carbocycles\, all in
  living cells. Extending the capabilities and uncovering the mechanisms of
  these new enzymes derived from natural iron-heme proteins provides a basi
 s for discovering new biocatalysts for increasingly challenging reactions.
  These new capabilities increase the scope of molecules and materials we c
 an build using synthetic biology and move us closer to a sustainable world
  where chemical synthesis can be fully programmed in DNA.
LOCATION:Max Perutz Lecture Theatre\, Medical Research Council (MRC) (MRC 
 Laboratory of Molecular Biol
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