Jennifer Guerrero

Commercial Drug Product Technologies

• Developed a novel cell-based assay in yeast for redesigning human protease selectivity using a co-expressed fluorogenic peptide substrate to detect protease activity by flow cytometry • Engineered a protease variant displaying 30 fold improved selectivity for the amyloid beta peptide, reduced toxicity to mammalian cells, and improved resistance to wild-type inhibitors • Elucidated the mechanism by which substitutions within the improved variant contributed to selectivity through analysis of the protein crystal structure and site-directed mutagenesis Advisors: Professor Patrick Daugherty and Professor Michelle O'Malley

• Increased solubility of the enzyme LovD in E. coli using site-directed mutagenesis • LovD variants led to increased whole-cell production of the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin Advisor: Professor Yi Tang

• Identified novel RNA transcripts conserved among yeast in the Saccharomyces genus • Developed profiles of polyA RNA transcripts using high throughput Solexa sequencing Advisor: Professor Gavin Sherlock

• Verified yeast expression of prolyl-4-hydroxylase for the production of human collagen in yeast Advisors: Professor Nancy Da Silva and Professor Szu-Wen Wang