Biochemistry and Biotechnology

The Biochemistry and Biotechnology division brings together two laboratories dedicated to discovering, engineering and characterizing proteins with promising biotechnological applications as well as to understanding their in vitro properties, including mechanism of action and stability towards various stresses. The structures of these proteins, alone or in complex with their partners, are determined in collaboration with researcher from the Structural Biology & Biophysics division.

The NEPTUNS Laboratory, led by Dr. Mireille Dumoulin, generates, selects, engineers and characterizes nano-antibodies (VHHs) against targets involved in chronic neutrophil inflammatory diseases, infectious diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. These VHHs are used not only to modulate the function of their targets for therapeutic applications, but also to image and quantify them for diagnostic applications.

The focus of the Laboratory of biological Macromolecules, led by Prof. Moreno Galleni, is to unravel and understand the molecular basis of antibiotic resistance and possibly the development of small molecule inhibitors of antibiotic resistance enzymes such as beta-lactamases. We also work on the enzymatic synthesis of new galacto-oligosaccharides and xylo-oligosaccharides prebiotics.

The expertise of this axis spans the entire protein engineering pipeline, from the creation of immune libraries of VHH genes, selection of VHHs by phage display, and functional screening, to protein data mining, protein production and purification, enzyme kinetics, protein-ligand interactions, protein stability and protein engineering in collaboration with the other laboratories/platforms of the CIP.