Enzymes are unique proteins that play an essential role in speeding up various biochemical reactions and are thus labelled as biological catalysts. Most biological reactions that occur within a living cell require enzymes for their timely completion. In fact, most biological reactions would take longer than a person’s lifetime to complete in the absence of enzymes.
Professor Roberto Chica recognizes the significant role of enzymes in supporting life by making them the primary focus of his research program. In an ongoing international collaboration with Michael Thompson (University of California Merced, U.S.) and Anthony Green (University of Manchester, UK), Prof. Chica will study the impact of the movement of enzymes —through structural fluctuations — on the speed of biochemical reactions. This research will use cutting-edge analytical techniques, such as mix-and-inject time-resolved serial X-ray crystallography, substrate engineering and multistate computational protein design; methods developed and refined by Dr. Thompson, Dr. Green, and Dr. Chica, respectively. In contrast to studying natural enzymes, Prof. Chica and his collaborators will investigate simpler artificial enzymes to avoid structural changes linked to evolutionary purposes that are not related to catalysis, such as allosteric regulation and stability at fluctuating temperatures. This promising research collaboration was recently awarded a prestigious Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) grant. The purpose of the HFSP Research Grant Program is to encourage international, interdisciplinary collaborations to answer important scientific questions in the life sciences. The highly competitive HFSP grants support innovative basic research that is fully curiosity and science driven. Prof. Chica shares that, “HFSP funding really builds connections around the world and with people from different areas. You can make exciting discoveries that you wouldn’t be able to make on your own, which makes it so much more interesting and worthwhile”.
This project is expected to enhance our understanding of enzymes and biological catalysis. According to Prof. Chica, “enzymes are the best catalysts known. If we could make enzymes on demand, we would be able to solve many problems in the world”.
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