Synthetic biology is a recently emerging discipline of science that applies engineering principles to biology.  By designing and constructing novel biological components, devices or systems in a modular fashion, naturally existing organisms can be reprogrammed to possess novel functionalities that can serve useful purposes for various aspects of human life.  

Our research group is particularly interested in engineering protein-based materials. Proteins have remarkable versatility ranging from carrying out complex biochemical reactions to self-assembling  into structures having precise geometry. We often refer to extremophilic organisms to find proteins / enzymes having unique properties, and further engineer them using rational / computational design as well as directed evolution. Resulting novel proteins, or cells equipped with these proteins can be used for a broad range of applications such as biocatalysis, bioelectronics or therapeutics.