Post-Doc
Joined the lab: August 2022
Background and Current Projects:After a B.Sc. in Cell and Molecular Biology at University of Sistan and Balochestan, Iran, followed by an M.Sc. in Genetic Engineering and Molecular Biology at EMTECH, University Putra Malaysia (UPM), I started my PhD under supervision of Prof. Patrice Soumillion at Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science and Technology, UCLouvain, Belgium. My PhD was funded through ES-Cat, a Marie Sklodowska Curie Innovative Training Network, and my thesis was on directed evolution of enzymes, focusing on understanding emergence of new enzymatic activities. Through investigating directed evolution of a penicillin binding protein (PBP-A in this case) into beta-lactamase in E. coli, my thesis highlighted how fitness costs related to promiscuous enzyme activity may hinder rather than promote enzyme evolution.
During my postdoc I will be working on a collaborative postdoctoral project between AstraZeneca and Hollfelder lab, where I will be working on enzyme evolution for gene therapy applications, focusing on in-vitro directed evolution of nuclease enzymes as well as discovery and characterization of natural nucleases from metagenome.
Interests: In my free time, I enjoy hiking, music, cooking and travelling, and interested in topics on ‘education towards a sustainable future’.
Selected Publications
- Dorrazehi G.M., Worms S., Chirakadavil J.B., Mignolet J., Hols P., Soumillion P. (2020) Building Scarless Gene Libraries in the Chromosome of Bacteria. In: Iranzo O., Roque A. (eds) Peptide and Protein Engineering. Springer Protocols Handbooks. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0720-6_11
- Simpson, J. D., Ray, A., Marcon, C., dos Santos Natividade, R., Dorrazehi, G. M., Durlet, K., [...] Alsteens, D. (2023). Single-Molecule Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Binding to C-Type Lectin Receptors. Nano Letters, 23(4), 1496-1504. doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c0493
