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International GCE Webinar

GCE Conference 2024 Group Photo

The International GCE Webinar is a monthly webinar series, open to all, featuring talks on cutting-edge applications of genetic code expansion (GCE) technologies as well as advances in the GCE field. It is organized by the Oregon State University GCE4All Research Center and hosted by Rick Cooley and John Lueck. The webinar is meant to be of value to both developers and users of GCE, as well as anyone interested in learning more about it. Speakers will be from around the globe, and we invite speaker and topic suggestions.

Webinar mechanics

The webinars run from October through June and occur on the third Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. Eastern Time (corresponding to 2 p.m. GMT March-October and 3 p.m. GMT November through February). The general format is to give each of the two speakers ~25 minutes which we recommend be divided into a presentation of ~20 minutes followed by ~5 minutes of discussion.

Registration

When possible, seminars will be recorded and made available for viewing on the GCE4All YouTube Channel; as this will not be possible for all seminars, please make it a priority to register for and participate in the live events. Although the seminars are free and open to all, pre-registration is required to get the specific link for each seminar.

Upcoming Webinars

February 20th, 2025

A Dual-Purpose Non-Canonical Amino Acid for the Expanded Genetic Code: Combining Metal-Binding and Click Chemistry

Amanda Jarvis (Univ of Edinburgh, UK)

Genetic code expansion has drastically increased the number of amino acids we can incorporate into protein scaffolds, including expanding the range of metal-binding amino acids. Unnatural amino acids containing rigid bidentate ligands as side chains, such as bipyridylalanine, offer different structural binding motifs to the canonical amino acids. This allows the possibility of building up very different metal active sites to those found in natural metalloproteins, enabling new-to-nature chemistry to be introduced to the biological toolbox. In this talk I will showcase our group’s work using metal-binding unnatural amino acids including a novel pyridyl-triazine amino acid.1

[1] Day, G. J. et al. angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024, 136, e202413073.

A Human Derived Genetic Code Expansion System for ncAA Controlled Protein Expression

Tao Liu (Peking University, China)

Developing orthogonal, trigger-responsive synthetic biology tools could benefit clinical applications, however, current systems largely relied on components from non-human origin to avoid unintended crosstalk, raising potential immunogenicity issue for use in human. Here, we established a human-derived genetic code expansion system (hGCE) capable of encoding non-canonical amino acids in human cells. Using 2-aminocaprylic acid (AMOA) as a representative amino acid, we achieved dose-dependent regulation of protein expression in mice with hGCE, demonstrating up to 126-fold induction and rapid activation within 1 hour of oral AMOA administration. The hGCE system is compatible with adeno-associated virus (AAV) delivery, providing reversible control of long-term transgene expression with promising implications for controllable gene and cell therapies.

March 20th, 2025

Edward Lemke (Mainz, Germany)

May Chakrabandhu (Cote D'azure, France)

April 17th, 2025

Yunan Zheng (AbbVie)

Rachel Green (Hopkins + HHMI)

May 15th, 2025

John Lueck (Rochester)

Erkin Kuru (Harvard University)

June 19th, 2025

No webinar due to the Juneteenth Holiday

2022-2023 Webinar Recordings

October 20th, 2022

PermaPhos: Revealing New Functions of Phosphorylated Proteins

Rick Cooley (Oregon State University)


November 17th, 2022

Genetically encoded chemical tools for protein studies in the live cell

Irene Coin (Leipzig)

Design and Evolution of Enzymes with Non-Canonical Catalytic Mechanisms

Anthony Green (Manchester, UK)


December 15th, 2022

Investigations of multi-domain DNA/RNA binding protein machines using FEncAA

Edwin Antony (Saint Louis University, School of Medicine)

Decoding the Language of Aromatic Side-Chains in Ion Channels and Receptors

Chris Ahern (University of Iowa)


January 19th, 2023

Methodological challenges of an expanded genetic code

Nediljko Budisa (University of Manitoba, Canada)


February 16th, 2023

Engineering Biomaterials Bearing Non-Canonical Amino Acids

Jin Kim Montclare (New York University)

Expanded genetic code for live-cell fluorescent protein labeling in (neuro)biology

Ivana Nikic-Spiegel (Tuebingen)


March 16th, 2023

Identification of neuropeptide and toxin binding sites on a membrane-embedded receptor through crosslinking

Stephan Pless (University of Copenhagen)


April 20th, 2023

Split aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases for proximity-induced stop codon suppression

Jeffery M. Tharp (Indiana University School of Medicine)


May 18th, 2023

Protein chemistry: an unnatural approach to unravelling the mystery of allostery

Sharona Gordon (University of Washington)

Applications of the Fluorescent Amino Acid Acridonylalanine

James Petersson (University of Pennsylvania)


June 15th, 2023

NMR isotope-labelled, serine-16 phosphorylated, amelogenin – the key to brighter smiles and understanding biomineralization

Garry Buchko (PNNL)

GCE Community Networking

A resource available for more extensive discussion and networking among those learning about, using and/or developing GCE technologies is the GCE bulletin board – GCEbb ­– a forum for email-based discussions. More information about the GCEbb, including how to join the email list, can be found at the GCEbb home page. We are looking forward to having you join our GCE conversations!