Departments

Prof. Dr. Roman Jerala is the recipient of a second ERC project for established researchers with his project "PROFI - Protein function regulation through inserts for response to biological, chemical and physical signals". The strategic goal of the project is to develop a modular platform that gives proteins the ability to detect different signals, thereby enabling the regulation of their function and the introduction of new properties into biological systems.

Dr. Tina Lebar is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant with the project “EditYR - Expanding the genome editing toolbox by rational reprogramming of tyrosine recombinase DNA specificities” The goal of the project is to develop genome editing technologies that overcome the limitations of current tools. We will focus on microbial enzymes known as tyrosine recombinases. These enzymes can precisely “write” new traits into a cell’s genetic material, but due to their complex structure, they are not easily redirected to carefully selected, safe locations in the genome. The project aims to expand our understanding of tyrosine recombinases and uncover new strategies for reprogramming them to target desired genomic sites.

Previous ERC grants:

Prof. dr. Roman Jerala received the ERC Advanced grant with a five-year project "MaCChines - Molecular machines based on coiled-coil protein origami". The aim of the project is to develop the principle of preparation of artificial proteins based on modular coiled coils (CCPO) in order to determine the potentials of this approach and elucidate which three-dimensional structures can be built in this way. It is a completely new type of protein design that is modular and differs from that based on natural proteins.

Prof. dr. Roman Jerala received the PoC grant with project »CCEdit – Coiled-coil mediated exonuclease tethering technology for the enhancement of CRISPR gene editing«. The aim of the project is to develop the use of an improved CRISPR system for gene deletion in the genome.