Research Focus

Our lab is broadly interested in mechanistic exploration and functional engineering of molecular interactions that are either essential for physiological processes or valuable to synthetic biology applications. A central theme of our research is studying allosteric regulation of proteins-often referred to as 'the second secret of life'. Allosteric proteins, represented by cell-surface receptors and multi-domain enzymes, are ubiquitous in nature and play a key role in maintaining homeostasis and enabling adaption of living organisms. Our current research focuses on creating designer ligands for functional modulation of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and biosynthetic enzymes, elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms of these interactions, and exploring their translational potential in both drug discovery and synthetic biology.