cSAT(cleavable Self-Aggregating Tags, 蛋白和多肽表达和纯化整合方法): In recnt years, we found that short self-assembling amphipathic peptides such as ELK16 (LELELKLKLELELKLK) and 18A (EWLKAFYEKVLEKLKELF) can drive proteins to form active aggregates in E. coli. Inspired by this finding, we have developed a streamlined protein expression and purification approach by inserting a cleavable intein molecule in between. We have applied this technology to successful production of medium to long-sized peptides (30-100 aa), which remains a challenge, as chemcial synthesis becomes very difficult with these peptides while recombinant expression often suffers from proteolytic degredation cleavage. Our work has already started to attract interests from major internatioanl biotech firm.

GRE（Global Regulator Engineering, 微生物全局调控蛋白工程）: Cellular tolerance toward different stresses is a key strait for industrial microbes. Recently we found that an exogenous global regulator, IrrE essential for an extremely radiation-resistant bacterium, Deinococcus radiodurans, functions in Escherichia coli, and significantly enhanced tolerance toward alcohol, acetate, and lignocellulosic hydrolysate stresses. The E. coli transcriptome were also significantly rewired at surprsingly high levels (some 27% of the E. coli genes in one case). GRE presents a significant and worthwhile addition to the current approaches for developing strain tolerance. This will expand the toolbox for synthetic biology by providing evolvable “regulatory” parts that operate at a higher level of complexity, and which can be used to elicit complex traits such as cellular tolerance toward different stresses.