Abstract:

The intricate structure of proteins allows them to act as powerful catalysts and highly specific recognition units. However, their structural sophistication also makes them unstable and difficult to handle in clinical and industrial settings. I will discuss two ongoing projects where we, as structural biologists, team up with chemists and material scientists to incorporate designed protein constructs into metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs).

Bio:

Stefan Arold is a Professor of Bioscience at KAUST. He is affiliated with the Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division (BESE) and the Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC). 
Prof. Arold has held faculty positions at MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston, USA and Centre de Biochimie Structurale (CBS) in Montpellier, France. He received his Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biophysics from University of Montpellier I and graduated cum laude.
Prof. Arold's research is dedicated to elucidating the molecular basis of the function and (de)regulation of proteins central to cellular key signaling networks in bacteria, plants, and animals. His investigations are based on an integrated structural biology approach that combines functional and structural data from multiple sources (small angle x-ray scattering, X-ray crystallography, NMR, EM, computational methods, biochemistry, ligand binding assays and functional analyses). Results are translated to engineer molecules with desired properties (e.g. reporters or inhibitors). Structural biology approaches are also used to enhance computational methods for functional annotation of genes (system-wide or focused).