CCE: Beckman Lecture

One can imagine two different strategies to exploit the translational apparatus–the cell's protein synthesis machine–to generate isolable quantities of sequence-defined biopolymers that are not strictly L-alpha-amino acid oligomers. One strategy is best described as "next-generation genetic code expansion"; the second is best described as "protein editing". Protein editing makes use of enzymes, chemical catalysis, and/or proximity to reconfigure the protein backbone post-translationally, in vitro or in vivo. In either case, the backbone-edited materials that result offer opportunities for expanded function, predictable structure, tunable stability, and orthogonal reactivity. This lecture will describe recent progress in this area, which notably does not require remodeled or re-engineered ribosomes.