Dr. Andrew Ellington

Biography

Dr. Andrew Ellington's research focuses on using evolutionary techniques to engineer biopolymers in cells. His work includes the selection of binding species such as aptamers and ribozymes from random sequence populations, aiming to apply these selected species to solve real-world problems. For instance, selected aptamers interact tightly and specifically with the Rev protein of HIV-1, which has implications for using aptamers to block viral replication. Similarly, he has developed ribozymes that are allosterically activated as oligonucleotide effectors, employing ribozymes to design and build biosensors that are useful for diagnosing diseases. Dr. Ellington has also pioneered methods for evolving proteins to exhibit novel functions and has worked on isolating stable variants of the p53 protein, which is deficient and implicated in the onset of cancer. These stable p53 variants are being explored for potential gene therapies for cancer patients. Furthermore, he has extended evolutionary approaches to entire organisms, aiming to evolve 'unnatural' E. coli strains (referred to as unColi) to augment genetic codes with unnatural amino acids, with hopes that these strains will facilitate the generation of enzymes with previously unknown structures and activities.

Research Interests