Publications related to Advancing Cell-Free Synthetic Biology: From sustained PURE protein synthesis to an isothermal one-pot DNA replication system

Membrane electrode assembly simulation of anion exchange membrane water electrolysis

Jan Van Herle, Zoé Mury, Suhas Nuggehalli Sampathkumar, Khaled Lawand

Anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) offers a green hydrogen production method that eliminates the need for platinum group metals (PGM) as electrocatalysts. This study employs a COMSOL (R) 6.0 model to simulate a 1x1 cm(2) Ni fibre - Raney (R ...

Elsevier2024

From Surfactants to 3D Printing: How Ion-Chelator Pair Interactions Affect the Mechanical Properties of Bioinspired Materials

Gaia De Angelis

The remarkable adaptability observed in marine ecosystems has often inspired researchers when developing new soft materials. The research undertaken in this thesis explores how ion chelator pair interactions influence the mechanical properties of bioinspir ...

EPFL2024

Membrane specificity of the human cholesterol transfer protein STARD4

Charlotte Julie Caroline Gehin

STARD4 regulates cholesterol homeostasis by transferring cholesterol between the plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum. The STARD4 structure features a helix-grip fold surrounding a large hydrophobic cavity holding the sterol. Its access is controlled ...

Academic Press Ltd- Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Influence of micro-patterned support properties and interfacial polymerization conditions on performance of patterned thin-film composite membranes

Kumar Varoon Agrawal, Cédric Karel J Van Goethem

Patterned membranes prepared via spray-modified non -solvent induced phase separation (s-NIPS) have successfully shown enhanced fluxes and better fouling control, thanks to the increased surface area and high fluid shear at the membrane/feed interface. The ...

Elsevier2024

Resolving bacterial cell biology: from replisome dynamics to cell wall synthesis

Chen Zhang

Bacteria are ubiquitous single cellular organisms. Compared to eukaryotic cells, bacteria have two unique characteristics: the membrane-less nucleoid and the cell wall built of peptidoglycan (PG). In most bacteria, a single circular chromosome is compacted ...

EPFL2024

Engineering novel protein interactions with therapeutic potential using deep learning-guided surface design

Anthony Marchand

Proteins are foundational biomolecules of life playing a crucial role in a myriad of biological processes. Their function often requires interplay with other biomolecules, including proteins themselves. Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are essential for ...

EPFL2024

From Sequence to Dynamics to Function: Computational Design of Allostery and Ligand Selectivity in G-Protein Coupled Receptors

Mahdi Hijazi

The phenomenon of allostery, a general property in proteins that has been heralded as "the second secret of life" remains elusive to our understanding and even more challenging to incorporate into protein design. One example of allosteric proteins with gre ...

EPFL2024

Osmosis-driven stiffening of structured hydrogels

Esther Amstad, Ran Zhao, Alexandra Thoma

Plant cells harness osmotic pressures to stiffen their leaves through strong turgor pressures. Key to this osmosisdriven stiffening is the confinement of liquids within semipermeable membranes that can regulate the transport of water molecules and ions. In ...

Elsevier2024

Polydopamine-coated photoautotrophic bacteria for improving extracellular electron transfer in living photovoltaics

Fabian Fischer, Ardemis Anoush Boghossian, Charlotte Elisabeth Marie Roullier, Melania Reggente, Mohammed Mouhib, Patricia Brandl, Hanxuan Wang

Living photovoltaics are microbial electrochemical devices that use whole cell–electrode interactions to convert solar energy to electricity. The bottleneck in these technologies is the limited electron transfer between the microbe and the electrode surfac ...

2024

S-acylation and lipid exchange at the ER-Golgi membrane contact sites regulate pathogen entry in human cells

Muhammad Umair Anwar

Cells have evolved endocytic pathways to internalize different molecules, to regulate intra-cellular communication and their interaction with external environment. Pathogens have co-evolved with cells to exploit these processes for infections. In particula ...

EPFL2024

Electrochemical devices and computer science: water/thermal management of proton exchange membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers in different scales

Hossein Pourrahmani

The current restrictions on the registration of combustion engines in different countries and the harmful impacts of fossil fuels on the environment and human health have motivated decision-makers to use batteries and/or fuel cells as alternatives for comb ...

EPFL2023

Large Libraries of Structurally Diverse Macrocycles Suitable for Membrane Permeation

Christian Heinis, Alessandro Angelini, Mischa Schüttel, Ganesh Kumar Mothukuri, Manuel Leonardo Merz, Zsolt Bognár, Xinjian Ji, Edward Jeffrey Will, Alexander Lund Nielsen, Anne Sofie Luise Zarda

Macrocycles offer an attractive format for drug development due to their good binding properties and potential to cross cell membranes. To efficiently identify macrocyclic ligands for new targets, methods for the synthesis and screening of large combinator ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2024

Development of cysteine cathepsin inhibitors combined with cell type-specific delivery for the treatment of B-cell lymphoma and solid tumors

Aaron Simone Petruzzella

Cysteine cathepsins proteases are enzymes that play essential physiological roles, but their activity is also associated to different aspects of cancer progression and to the development of other diseases. Therefore, cysteine cathepsins are relevant and pr ...

EPFL2024

High-throughput parallel testing of ten photoelectrochemical cells for water splitting: case study on the effects of temperature in hematite photoanodes

Sophia Haussener, Isaac Thomas Holmes-Gentle, Roberto Valenza, Franky Esteban Bedoya Lora

High-throughput testing of photoelectrochemical cells and materials under well-defined operating conditions can accelerate the discovery of new semiconducting materials, the characterization of the phenomena occurring at the semiconductor-electrolyte inter ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Prolamins' 3D structure: A new insight into protein modeling using the language of numbers and shapes

Niloufar Sharif

This study combined protein modeling methods to generate the prolamins' fractions as precise as possible. Hence, gliadins, zeins, kafirins, hordeins, secalins, avenins and oryzins were generated based on their characteristics and disulfide mapping. Finding ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Functionalized Å-scale Pores in Graphene for Carbon Capture

Kuang-Jung Hsu

Single-layer graphene, hosting a high density of functionalized molecular-sieving atom-thick pores, is considered to be an excellent material for gas separation membranes. These functionalized atom-thick pores enable the shortest transport pathway across t ...

EPFL2024

Chromosome organization shapes replisome dynamics in Caulobacter crescentus

Suliana Manley, Laurent Casini, Chen Zhang

DNA replication in bacteria takes place on highly compacted chromosomes, where segregation, transcription, and repair must occur simultaneously. Within this dynamic environment, colocalization of sister replisomes has been observed in many bacterial specie ...

Nature Portfolio2024

A new self-adjustable glaucoma valve

Nikolaos Stergiopoulos, Stéphane Bigler, Julien Maxime Gerber, Soroush Rafiei

Introduction: Glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness globally, affects more than 70 million people across the world. When initial treatments prove ineffective, especially for cases with high intraocular pressure (IOP), the preferred approach ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Rescue of secretion of rare-disease-associated misfolded mutant glycoproteins in UGGT1 knock-out mammalian cells

Maurizio Molinari

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention of misfolded glycoproteins is mediated by the ER-localized eukaryotic glycoprotein secretion checkpoint, UDP-glucose glycoprotein glucosyl-transferase (UGGT). The enzyme recognizes a misfolded glycoprotein and flags it ...

Wiley2024

Investigating the intra-molecular and inter-molecular effects of post-translational modifications on intrinsically disordered protein regions and structured protein regions

Zhidian Zhang

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play a pivotal role in regulating protein structure, interaction, and function. Aberrant PTM patterns are associated with diseases. Moreover, individual PTMs have a complex interaction with each other, known as PTM c ...

EPFL2024