EPSRC DLA PhD Studentship: Discovery and Engineering of new D-peptidases

This PhD project will discover, characterise and engineer a suite of D-amino acid-specific peptidases for biotechnological applications. D-stereospecific proteases have diverse applications in biotechnology. However, currently characterised D-peptidases have limited substrate specificity, precluding their broader use in academia and industry. The project will: (1) Characterise known homologs of D-peptidases, (2) Bioinformatic identification of novel D-peptidases, (3) Directed evolution of improved D-peptidases, and (4) Biotechnological applications of engineered D-peptidase variants. The student will be co-supervised by Drs Manuel Müller and Sarah Barry and embedded in the wider chemical biology community at King's Chemistry. The student will benefit from the Barry group's expertise in bioinformatics and rational engineering of biocatalysts and peptide cyclisation, and the Müller group's expertise in protein chemistry and engineering.