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Pratap is an IP Strategist and Patent researcher. He has expertise in dealing with Intellectual Property issues in relation to emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3D bioprinting and synthetic biology. He is currently a Postdoctoral fellow at TC Bernie School of Law, University of Queensland, Australia. Pratap pursued his PhD from the Centre for Law and Genetics, University of Tasmania, Australia where his research was focused on "Patenting issues related to Bioprinted tissues and Bioinks." In 2018, he was invited by Govt. of Japan to assist the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) in harmonizing Japanese Patent Law in relation to AI. In 2017, he completed his Master of Law (LLM) in Intellectual Property from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva and the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He is the recipient of the prestigious International Fellowship offered by WIPO. He holds a Master's degree in Genomics from the Central University of Kerala, India and a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology, Microbiology, and Chemistry from Acharya Nagarjuna University, India. Pratap also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Patent informatics from the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) at the CSIR Unit of Research and Development of Information Products (URDIP), India and worked as a Patent researcher in the same.

The molecular evolution of cytochrome P450 Enzymes: biological catalysts of unprecedented versatility.

Cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs, P450s) especially those responsible for drug metabolism in humans, are the unifying theme of the research in our lab. These fascinating enzymes are catalysts of exceptional versatility, and functional diversity. In humans they are principally responsible for the clearance of a practically unlimited variety of chemicals from the body, but are also critical in many important physiological processes. In other organisms (plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, almost everything!) they carry out an unprecedented range of functions, such as defense, chemical communication, neural development and even pigmentation. P450s are involved in the biosynthesis of an unequalled range of potent, biologically active natural products in microbes, plants and animals, including many antibiotics, plant and animal hormones, signalling molecules, toxins, flavours and fragrances. We are studying how P450s have evolved to deal with novel substrates by reconstructing ancestral precursors and evolutionary pathways, to answer such questions as how did the koala evolve to live on eucalyptus leaves, a toxic diet for most mammals.

The capabilities of P450s are only just coming to be fully recognized and structural studies on P450s should yield critical insights into how enzyme structure determines function. For example, recently we discovered that P450s are present within cells in the Fe(II) form, a finding that has led to a radical revision of the dogma concerning the P450 catalytic cycle, and has implications for the control of uncoupling of P450 activity in cells. Importantly, the biotechnological potential of P450s remains yet to be exploited. All of the specific research themes detailed below take advantage of our recognized expertise in the expression of recombinant human cytochrome P450 enzymes in bacteria. Our group is interested in finding out how P450s work and how they can be made to work better.

Artificial evolution of P450s for drug development and bioremediation: a way of exploring the sequence space and catalytic potential of P450s. The demonstrated catalytic diversity of P450 enzymes makes them the ideal starting material for engineering sophisticated chemical reagents to catalyse difficult chemical transformations. We are using artificial (or directed) evolution to engineer enzymes that are more efficient, robust and specialized than naturally occurring enzymes with the aim of selecting for properties that are commercially useful in the areas of drug discovery and development and bioremediation of pollutants in the environment. The approach we are using also allows us to explore the essential sequence and structural features that underpin all ~12000 known P450s so as to determine how they work.

Synthetic biology of enzymes for clean, green, solar-powered chemistry in drug development, bioremediation and biosensors. We have identified ancestral enzymes that are extremely thermostable compared to their modern counterparts, making them potentially very useful in industry, since they can withstand long incubations at elevated temperatures. They can be used as ‘off the shelf’ reagents to catalyse useful chemistry, such as in in drug discovery and development, fine chemicals synthesis, and cleaning up the environment. Working with drug companies, we are exploring how they can be best deployed in chemical processes and what structural features make them efficient, robust and specialized. We are also immobilizing P450s in virus-like-particles as ‘designer’ reagents that can be recovered from reactions and reused. To make such processes cheaper and more sustainable, we are using photosynthesis to power P450 reactions for clean, green biocatalysis in microalgae.

Biosketch:

After graduating from UQ with first class Honours in Biochemistry, Elizabeth took up a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Overseas Scholarship to pursue doctoral work at Oxford University then undertook postdoctoral work at the Center in Molecular Toxicology and Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with Prof. F.P. Guengerich. She returned to UQ in 1993 to take up a position in Pharmacology and joined the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences in 2009 as a Professor of Biochemistry.

Dr. Huadong Peng began his tenure as a Senior Research Fellow at the Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at the University of Queensland, Australia, in January 2024. He earned his PhD from Monash University in 2018, followed by postdoctoral training at Imperial College London and the Technical University of Denmark until 2023. Prior to his PhD, Dr. Peng obtained a Master’s Degree from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013 and a Bachelor’s Degree from China Three Gorges University in 2010. Additionally, he served as a research associate at Novozymes China from November 2013 to January 2015.

Dr. Peng's research is focused on synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, microbial communities, lipid metabolism, microbial food and industrial biotechnology. He has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers and patents in well-known journals such as Nat. Microbial., Nat. Chem. Biol., Biotechnol Biofuels, Appl. Energy, Bioresour. Technol., Biotechnol. J, etc. Furthermore, he has delivered numerous oral presentations at international conferences, showcasing his extensive research and its impact in metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, microbial food and biotechnology.

Dr Giovanni Pietrogrande obtained his PhD from the University of Newcastle. Here he explored how different brain processes are affected by the activation of microglia, the immune cells resident within our brain. In particular his work shows that microglia mediated inflammation has a pivotal role in neuronal loss following brain ischemic injury, and in his work he developed and proposed a new, efficient and translatable treatment for the prevention of neuronal death called Low Oxygen Post Conditioning.

In late 2019 he joined the Stem Cell Engineering lab at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Queensland. Now he uses and improves cutting-edge techniques for CRISPR-Cas9 mediated gene editing to modify the genome of induced pluripotent stem cells and generate brain and spinal cord organoids to model neurological diseases and evaluate potential treatments.

Dr. Pietrogrande has also established collaborations with biotechs and startups, employing genetic engineering to modify cells for product development and organoid-based compound screening. Additionally, he provides consultancy services for Stemcore and Phenomics Australia, both UQ-based facilities, driving advancements in stem cell research.