Professor Jason Chin; MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Title: Reprogramming the Genetic Code

Biography:

Jason Chin is a Programme Leader at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), where he is alsoHead of the Centre for Chemical & Synthetic Biology (CCSB). He is a Professor of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at the University ofCambridge, and holds a joint appointment at the University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry. He is also a fellow in NaturalSciences at Trinity College, Cambridge. Jason is a native of the UK. He was an undergraduate at Oxford University, where he workedwith Professor John Sutherland on Cephalosporin biosynthesis. He obtained his PhD as a Fulbright awardee from Yale University,working with Professor Alanna Schepartz. He was a Damon Runyon Fellow at The Scripps Research Institute with Professor PeterSchultz where he developed the first approaches to systematically expand the genetic code of eukaryotic cells and pioneeredapproaches, that are now widely used, for defining protein interactions by genetically encoding photocrosslinking amino acids. Jason’swork has been recognized by a number of awards, including: the Francis Crick Prize (Royal Society), the Corday Morgan Prize (RoyalSociety of Chemistry), European Molecular Biology Organization’s (EMBO) Gold Medal, Louis-Jeantet Young Investigator Career Award,Sackler International Prize in the Physical Science. He is in the European Inventors Hall of Fame, a member of EMBO, a Fellow of theAcademy of Medical Sciences, and a Fellow of The Royal Society. Jason’s early work provided a foundation for Ambrx and he is thefounder and CSO of Constructive Bio. He is also a non-executive director at the UK Government’s Department of Science, Innovationand Technology.

Abstract:

In terrestrial life, DNA is copied to messenger RNA, and the 64 triplet codons in messenger RNAs are decoded – in the process oftranslation – to synthesize proteins. Cellular protein translation provides the ultimate paradigm for the synthesis of long polymers ofdefined sequence and composition, but is commonly limited to polymerizing the 20 canonical amino acids. I will describe our progresstowards the encoded synthesis of non-canonical biopolymers. These advances may form a basis for new classes of genetically encodedpolymeric materials and medicines. To realize our goals we are re-imagining some of the most conserved features of the cell; we havecreated new ribosomes, new aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs, and organisms with entirely synthetic genomes in which we havere-written the genetic code.

Babraham Distinguished Lecture - Professor Jason Chin