Home Department: Bioengineering
Mentor: Michael Lin, Neurobiology and Bioengineering

Heterodimeric Dronpa is a GFP-like fluorescent protein that dissociates and switches off to a dim form under cyan light (488nm) and dimerizes to restore to a bright form under violet light (405nm). By fusing each Dronpa monomer to a protein and targeting sequence, Tyler will control protein localization and activity using light. This is superior to previous methods to control protein activity, since it requires no cofactors that could be toxic to the cell and features a built-in reporter of protein location and activity level to monitor Dronpa itself.