Chaput Lab
Principal Investigator: John Charles Chaput
Institution: University of California, Irvine (Irvine, CA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Polymerases are among the most powerful tools in the molecular biology toolbox, allowing researchers to precisely synthesize DNA and RNA molecules for diverse applications in synthetic biology and healthcare. But what if these enzymes were no longer restricted to the genetic polymers of life? What new technologies could we develop, or what new discoveries could we make? One clear example is the use of specialty polymerases to support the evolution of affinity reagents (aptamers) and catalysts that are better equipped to function under harsh biological conditions. Motivated by this goal, examples of engineered polymerases have emerged that can synthesize diverse classes of genetic molecules (XNAs). However, despite many impressive advances, the widespread adoption of XNAs in biomedical applications remains limited by the low activity of existing polymerases. The central challenge lies in understanding how to reshape the active site pocket to accommodate highly divergent substrates while preserving the catalytic activity of the native enzyme fold. Fortunately, recent advances in high-throughput microfluidic screening platforms, like droplet- based optical pol…
Active NIH Awards
- 1R01GM165765-01: Optical Probes for Polymerase Engineering (2026)
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