On Monday, 2nd of March 2026, 2:00 PM (Ljubljana/Berlin time),Dr. Ajasja Ljubetič, Research Assistant Processor and group leader in the Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology at the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia will present in our CTGCT Science Talks webinar series.
Title: Overview of de novo protein design (and design of novel binders).
Dr. Ajasja Ljubetič is a Research Assistant Professor and group leader in the Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology at the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia. His lab combines the power of the Rosetta software suite with cutting-edge deep learning tools (including AlphaFold2, RFdiffusion, and ProteinMPNN) to engineer novel proteins with high precision. This hybrid approach lets them harness the binding specificity and modularity of coiled coils, alongside the structural diversity and robustness of de novo protein scaffolds. His team is developing a pipeline for de novo protein design (https://github.com/ajasja/prosculpt) with the aim to make protein design easier for noncomputational scientists. He learned protein design in the laboratory of Nobel laureate prof. David Baker and was recently awarded and ERC Consolidator grant for his project PROPEL that will soon launch. More information about his research is available at https://ljubetic-lab.si/. Dr. Ljubetič will focus on presenting the current capabilities of de novo protein design with a focus on the current methods for design of novel binders.
The webinar will be recorded and it might be shared only partially or fully.