Dr. Lynn Kamerlin

Biography

Lynn Kamerlin is a renowned Professor and the Vasser Woolley Chair at the Georgia Institute of Technology, specializing in the interface of chemistry and biology with a focus on computational tools to understand the chemical basis of complex biomolecular problems. Her research aims to elucidate dynamical mechanistic parameters that shape the evolution of new enzyme functions and engineer new enzymes tailored to specific physiochemical properties. Dr. Kamerlin combines methodological development with real-world applications through close collaborations with experimental groups worldwide. Recent advancements in her research include the development of replica exchange empirical valence bond simulations to describe chemical reactivity and the application of machine learning tools to design new enzymes. She actively works on projects using natural language models to predict protein structure and activity, integrating enhanced sampling approaches with structural bioinformatics. Her research interests also extend to modular evolution for creating new protein scaffolds with catalytic functions and optimizing the incorporation of non-canonical amino acids for industrially relevant enzyme design. Furthermore, she is dedicated to understanding the intrinsic chemistry involved in biological catalysis, particularly focusing on mechanistic selectivity in biological versus non-enzymatic phosphoryl group transfer reactions, which are fundamental issues in physical organic chemistry.

Research Interests

Awards