Chang C. Liu

Systems and Approaches
Molecular evolution

Interests
Evolution, Unnatural Amino Acids, Genetic Code Expansion, Synthetic Biology, Game Theory

Summary
Directed evolution of and with expanded genetic codes. By expanding the genetic code to allow translational incorporation of unnatural, artificially synthesized amino acids, one can site-specifically introduce unique chemical functionality into proteins in vivo. By using such expanded genetic codes in directed evolution, one can impose selection for novel protein function where variants containing unnatural amino acids will be selected should the unnatural amino acids confer functional advantage.