The Molecular Origins of Life II - Synthetic Life
This interdisciplinary course on the interface of organic chemistry, chemical, molecular and synthetic biology aims to provide the current status of research on the following topics:
Artificial genetic polymers and oligonucleotide analogues; unnatural base pairing – expansion of the genetic alphabet;
artificial ribozymes for efficient catalysis and recognition (SELEX, DNAzymes, foldamers);
biosynthetic incorporation of unnatural aminoacids (UAAs) into proteins;
protein engineering – production of enzymes with unknown or unnatural properties, ab initio protein design, directed evolution, theozymes;
Artificial lipid vesicles as models for protocell multiplication;