Computational Bionanosensor Design

Term: 
2022-2023 Fall
Faculty Department of Project Supervisor: 
Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
Number of Students: 
1

This project is a continuation of a previous version. Only those students who worked therein will be accepted. So please do not apply unless this condition applies to you.
 
We have recently started a project entitled, “A Generalized Computational Methodology for the Design of Genetically Encoded Fluorescent Biosensors” with professors Emrah Eroğlu and Ali Rana Atılgan. The project aims to develop a holistic process that eliminates experimental trial and error stages in biosensor design, takes into account not only the binding region but rather the whole protein structure, and therefore puts more emphasis on the computational steps while also including experimental measurements. For details, please see the related GazeteSU article [1].
 
As a side project, we wish to look into strengthening the ammonium binding properties of a potassium probe developed experimentally in the Emrah Eroglu lab. For this purpose, we will use computational biology tools to model the related protein, explore its binding site properties, compare it with other potassium and ammonium probes and suggest point mutations to achieve stong binding to the latter. Our main computational tool will be the VMD/NAMD suite of programs [2, 3].
 
[1] https://gazetesu.sabanciuniv.edu/node/9854
[2] https://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
[3] http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Training/Tutorials/namd-index.html

Related Areas of Project: 
Computer Science and Engineering
Molecular Biology, Genetics and Bioengineering
Materials Science ve Nano Engineering
Physics

About Project Supervisors

Canan Atilgan
Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
canan@sabanciuniv.edu
http://people.sabanciuniv.edu/canan/
 
Melike Berksöz, PhD
mbersoz@sabanciuniv.edu