Lilia Alberghina – författare

Protein engineering has proved to be one of the more fruitful technological approaches in biotechnology, being both very powerful and able to generate valuable intellectual property. This book aims to present examples in which the application of protein engineering has successfully solved problems arising in industrial biotechnology. There is a section on its use to enhance purification of recombinant proteins. The use of protein engineering to modify the activity or the stability of industrial enzymes from lipases to proteases, from carboxypeptidases to glucanases and glucosidases, and from pectin modifying enzymes to enzymes able to degrade recalcitrant compounds is extensively covered. It is shown how areas as diverse as agrofood technology, fine chemistry, detergents, bioremediation and biosensors receive significant contributions from protein and solvent engineering.The application of protein engineering to health care is also covered, from the development of new vaccines to new potential therapeutic proteins. A specific notation is given to protein engineering in the development of target molecules for drug discovery.International in scope, the many contributions are drawn from academia and industry. The text should be of interest to students and researchers in industrial biotechnology as well as to everybody interested in basic research in protein structure, molecular genetics, bio-organic chemistry, biochemistry, agrobiotechnology, pharmaceutical sciences and medicine.

The wealth of genomic and post-genomic data needs to be structured so that the understanding of complex cellular processes can be achieved by creating computational models able to describe and predict phenotypes at the cell or organism level in health and disease. This book provides a detailed presentation of systems biology studies that are paving the way towards the above-mentioned goal and discusses the most efficient experimental and computational strategies for this purpose. The potential benefits for bioindustry, in particular the discovery of new drugs and better management, are also presented.

For life to be understood and disease to become manageable, the wealth of postgenomic data now needs to be made dynamic. This development requires systems biology, integrating computational models for cells and organisms in health and disease; quantitative experiments (high-throughput, genome-wide, living cell, in silico); and new concepts and principles concerning interactions. This book defines the new field of systems biology and discusses the most efficient experimental and computational strategies. The benefits for industry, such as the new network-based drug-target design validation, and testing, are also presented.