Aaron G. Bart

The primary goal of protein engineering is to generate protein variants suitable for industrial, academic, or medical applications. Two common objectives are (i) to optimize the stability and solubility of a pre-existing protein while retaining or improving its primary function (e.g. enzyme activity) and (ii) to identify or design protein sequences that confer novel activity or ligand/substrate specificity.

Even in the advanced, “castration-resistant” phase, prostate cancer typically remains fueled by androgen production and androgen signaling pathways ( 1 Attard G. Reid A.H. Yap T.A. Raynaud F. Dowsett M. Settatree S. et al. Phase I clinical trial of a selective inhibitor of CYP17, abiraterone acetate, confirms that castration-resistant prostate cancer commonly remains hormone driven. ).

Aaron G. Bart‡, Kurt L. Harris§, Elizabeth M. J. Gillam§ and Emily E. Scott‡,¶1 ‡Program in Biophysics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 §School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland St. Lucia, Brisbane 4072, Australia ¶Departments of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 ↵1 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Michigan, 428 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI.