CAREER: Directed Evolution for Gene Delivery and Bioengineering

PI建议将定向进化应用于一个新的研究方向：改进用于基因治疗的病毒基因传递载体。除了产生具有增强性能的载体外，他们的方法还可能进一步深入了解逆转录病毒的生物学。他们计划开发本科化学工程专业生物技术重点的讲座和实验课程，以反映多样性和定向进化日益增长的重要性。此外，他们将开设生物工程研究生选修课程，涵盖组合化学和定向进化，以及生物信息学的相关主题领域。开发这门课程将是我们培养研究生和本科生研究方法和实践的总体目标的一部分。他们的具体目标是：1)确定逆转录病毒蛋白的进化是否可以提高逆转录病毒载体的生产效率和易用性2)检查非编码逆转录病毒区域的进化是否可以克服基因传递后表达的安全性和稳定性问题3)开发本科生物技术选修课和实验课程材料，涵盖生物工程和生物技术多样性的重要性。4)开发一门研究生选修课，整合生物信息学、生物多样性、组合化学和定向进化等主题。

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 delivery3) To develop the undergraduate biotechnology option lecture and laboratory course material to cover the importance of diversity in bioengineering and biotechnology4) To develop a graduate elective course that integrates the topics of bioinformatics, biodiversity, combinatorial chemistry, and directed evolution.