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Download Screening for novel snake venom toxins using protein chemistry and molecular biology.
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NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering Research Project Write-up Title of Project : Screening for novel snake venom toxins using protein chemistry and molecular biology Name of Supervisor : Prof. R. Manjunatha Kini Contact Details: Dept of Biological Sciences National University of Singapore 14 Science Drive 4 Singapore 117543 Tel: 65165235 Fax: 67792486 email: [email protected] Short Description Toxins have evolved millions of years to achieve pinpoint specificity in their interaction with target proteins and provided impetus for the design and development of numerous therapeutic agents useful in the treatment of human diseases. In this program, we propose to isolate and characterize novel toxins from rare snake venoms, which have not been studied, and develop prototypes of therapeutic agents based on their structure. NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering Research Project Write-up Title of Project : Design and development of potent thrombin peptide inhibitors Name of Supervisor : Prof. R. Manjunatha Kini Contact Details: Dept of Biological Sciences National University of Singapore 14 Science Drive 4 Singapore 117543 Tel: 65165235 Fax: 67792486 email: [email protected] Short Description We have identified anticoagulant, antiplatelet and hypotensive sites in snake venom toxins. We are currently designing more potent and stable short peptides. We also plan to develop proteins with novel functions using these functional sites. We also design short peptides with specific structural folds. NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering Research Project Write-up Title of Project : Structure-Function studies of novel toxins from snake venoms Name of Supervisor : Prof. R. Manjunatha Kini Contact Details: Dept of Biological Sciences National University of Singapore 14 Science Drive 4 Singapore 117543 Tel: 65165235 Fax: 67792486 email: [email protected] We have been involved in isolation and characterization of novel toxins from snake venoms and identified a number of new toxins that belong to known family of toxins, but with different biological properties. We have also identified a few new families of snake venom toxins. The new toxins include (a) Ohanin (a protein toxin which crosses the blood-brain barrier and induces hypo locomotion in mice. (b) Acetylcholine receptor toxins including denmotoxin (c) Waprins is a new family of proteins with 50 amino acid residues and four disulfide bonds that we described recently. (d) New families of toxins which are yet to be named. NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering Research Project Write-up Title of Project : Design of mini enzymes Name of Supervisor : Prof. R. Manjunatha Kini Contact Details: Dept of Biological Sciences National University of Singapore 14 Science Drive 4 Singapore 117543 Tel: 65165235 Fax: 67792486 email: [email protected] Short Description We have been using protein design and engineering methods to develop short bioactive ligands with different therapeutic applications. This project aims at designing mini proteins and enzymes which retain most of the desired biochemical and biological properties of the parent protein. We have marked a number of proteins and enzymes with distinct properties.
