The Weiss Lab at UCI
RESEARCH
Modifying bacteriophage. Many of the lab's projects start with a harmless virus that infects bacteria, called a bacteriophage or phage. The phage coat (shown above) has an unusual right handed coiled-coil of alpha-helical P8 proteins
Streamlining cancer diagnosis. In collaboration with Prof. Reg Penner (UCI), we incorporate phage with hooks binding to cancer biomarkers into electronic circuits for quantitative answers in minutes, rather than weeks.
Single molecule bioelectronics. In colloboration with Prof. Phil Collins (UCI), we watch single enzymes catalyze reactions in real-time using carbon nanocircuits. Such observations can decipher key steps in the mechanism of proteins like DNA polymerase (shown), and provide new tools for biotechnology.
Organic synthesis. We develop fast, scalable and easy routes to compounds required for complex experiments in chemical biology (e.g., the unnatural amino acid azidophenylalanine shown above).
Protein engineering. We engineer proteins to dissect how they work at both single molecule and cellular levels. Here, we have attached an engineered variant of the protein T4 lysozyme to a carbon nanotube for interrogation of its catalytic activity in water.
