This network offers research training in a central area of biotechnology that strongly interfaces with basic research as well as industrial application. We intend to use directed evolution as tool to reproduce Nature's remarkable ability to generate functional proteins – catalysts or biologically active binding molecules– that perform at levels near perfection. By harnessing the forces of Darwinian evolution in the laboratory we want to (i) screen large and diverse libraries (man-made and genomic) for proteins with new and useful functions, (ii) optimize existing proteins for applications in medicine, biotechnology and cell biology and (iii) provide a better understanding of how existing enzymes evolved and study enzyme mechanisms in general.

The proposed Network brings together leading academic and industrial groups with diverse and complementary skills: the development of a variety of innovative biotechnology tools for the generation and exploitation of large libraries, expertise in mechanistic enzymology and an unrivalled technology platform including phage display, in vitro compartmentalization, ribosome display, selective protein labelling and high-throughput screening that will be key to achieve the ambitious goals of this project The project is a continuation of a successful framework 5 network (ENDIRPRO). The partnership has now been extended by two successful SMEs at different stages of their development and one of Europe’s premier medium-sized biotech companies that are keen to utilise and market the expected results of this collaborative effort.

Posts available

Positions for graduate students and postdoctoral workers are available from 1 September 2008 in all network groups, and will arise from time to time over the next 3-4 years (2008-2012). For more information contact the Principal Scientist of the group you are interested in (or the Coordinator) at any time. Please include your CV, addresses of at least two referees and a description of your scientific interests and future plans.

ENEFP Intranet https://camtools.caret.cam.ac.uk/portal

Group Leader		Research Area
Florian Hollfelder [Coordinator] http://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/~fh111/ Cambridge University (United Kingdom) Email fh111@cam.ac.uk		Mechanistic enzymology; chemical biology; high-throughput assay systems (including microdroplets in microfludics), protein engineering.
Kai Johnsson http://isic.epfl.ch/johnsson_e.htm ETH Lausanne (Switzerland) Email: kai.johnsson@epfl.ch		Chemical biology Protein function microarrays, directed evolution, methods for the specific labeling of fusion proteins with small molecules in vivo.
Amir Aharoni http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Centers/nibn/Research/ StructuralBiotechnology/AmirAharoni.htm Ben Gurion University of the Negev Bersheeva (Israel) Email: aaharoni@bgu.ac.il		Addressing biological mechanisms by directed evolution.
Patrice Soumillion http://www.uclouvain.be/en-14099.html Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) Email: patrice.soumillion@uclouvain.be		Phage display, selection of hydrolases, metalloenzymes, beta-lactamases, penicillin binding proteins, engineering cyclic peptides
Uwe Bornscheuer http://www.chemie.uni-greifswald.de/~biotech Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Greifswald (Germany) Email:		Protein engineering, directed evolution of lipases and esterases, genomic library screening.
Andreas Brecht http://www.covalys.com Covalys AG Basel (Switzerland) Email: kathrin.muentener@covalys.com		Tools for Protein Research
Klaus Liebeton www.brain-biotech.de Brain (Biotechnology Research and Information Network AG) Email , kl@brain-biotech.de		Protein discovery from natural biodiversity for applications in the chemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries.
Lutz Jermutus www.medimmune.com MedImmune Granta Park, Cambridge (UK) Email JermutusL@medimmune.com,		Engineering therapeutic proteases
Dick B. Janssen http://www.rug.nl/gbb/research/researchgroups/biotechnology/index University of Groningen Groningen (Netherlands) Email d.b.janssen@rug.nl,		Protein engineering of enzymes for ‘green chemistry’, mechanistic enzymology.
Andrew D. Griffiths http://www-isis.u-strasbg.fr/labisis.html A/ Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS) Strasbourg (France) Email Griffiths@isis.u-strasbg.fr		Development of compartmentalised in vitro selection approaches, phage display, humanised antibodies, compartmentalised proteomics and genomics approaches.
Dan Tawfik (Associated Member) Dan Tawfik http://www.weizmann.ac.il/Biological_Chemistry/scientist/Tawfik/ The Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot (Israel) e-mail dan.tawfik@weizmann.ac.il		Protein engineering, directed evolution, the theoretical basis of directed and natural evolution.