Justin Siegel is an Associate Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine at UC Davis as well as the Faculty Director of the Innovation Institute for Food and Health. He serves as the Principal Investigator of the PTFI Center of Excellence for North America.
Professor Siegel’s scientific efforts are focused on combining computational and experimental tools to develop a fundamental knowledge of enzyme catalysis, and apply ing those principles to design novel proteins of therapeutic or commercial interest. Currently he is working with an international community on the development of Rosetta computational methodology for predicting and designing macromolecular structures, interactions, and functions. Using this methodology he has completed the de novo design of enzymes capable of catalyzing chemical reactions not found in nature, such as the Diels-Alder reaction. This was followed up by working with an online community, Foldit, to further engineer these proteins for enhanced activity. Most recently he has worked on the redesign of naturally occurring enzymes for the degradation of immunogenic gluten proteins, to develop a novel CO2 fixation pathways, and design of a novel anthrax therapeutic. His current focus is on the design of novel biofuel and commodity chemical biosynthetic pathways, the development of novel therapeutics, and the general understanding of the relationship between protein sequence, structure, and function.