Prof Roman Jerala

Head of the Department of “Synthetic biology and immunology”
National Institute of Chemistry, Kemijski Institut
Ljubljana, Slovenia

Websites: Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology

Work performed/role in Virofight:
“Our task is to design and implement polypeptide-based viral binders and neutralizers that can work alone or in combination with nucleic acid cages.”

My long-term vision of the Virofight project?
“Biomolecular design opens the door to an innovative approach to target and neutralize viruses. Particularly in combination with wide specificity of virus binders it could represent a first line defence against new and unknown viruses, to prevent spreading of the epidemic.”

Interesting reads about our work:

“Coiled-coils are protein structural motifs that can specify heteromeric interactions between proteins. We have demonstrated that designable coiled-cols are orthogonal in mammalian cells and represent a potent tool to guild trafficking within cells and enhance response of mammalian cells to chemical signals or light”: “A tunable orthogonal coiled-coil interaction toolbox for engineering mammalian cells.” Lebar T, Lainšček D, Merljak E, Aupič J, Jerala R.(2020) Nat Chem Biol. 16(5):513-519

“Transcriptional regulation of cellular processes is most straightforward to design; however, its response occurs only within few hours. Here we have designed fast proteolysis and coiled-coil-mediated interactions to introduce fast response to signals into mammalian cells. Combinations of split proteases and coiled-coils enables construction of Boolean logic gates in human cells to improv selectivity for selected combinations of signals that trigger the desired response.”: “Design of fast proteolysis-based signaling and logic circuits in mammalian cells.” Fink T, Lonzarić J, Praznik A, Plaper T, Merljak E, Leben K, Jerala N, Lebar T, Strmšek Ž, Lapenta F, Benčina M, Jerala R. (2019) Nat Chem Biol. Feb;15(2):115-122.

“Coiled-coil pairs can be designed de novo. We used concatenation of coiled-coil forming modules to design a polypeptide chain that self-assembles into selected polyhedral cages, which we named coiled-coil protein origami. Here we have demonstrated three new polyhedral as protein folds not found in nature that can self-assemble in mammalian cells as well as in vivo.”: “Design of in vivo self-assembling coiled-coil protein origami.” Ljubetič, A., Lapenta, F., Gradišar, H., Drobnak, I., Aupič, J., Strmšek, Ž., Lainšček, D., Hafner-Bratkovič, I.,  Majerle, A., Krivec, N.,  Benčina, M., Pisanski, T., Ćirković Veličković, T., Round, A., Carazo, J.M., Melero, R. and Jerala, R., (2017) Nature Biotech, 35:1094-1101.