Elliot Lakner

Despite a century of intensive study, the origins of enzymatic catalysis remain unclear. Study in natural systems has too many confounding variables, while interrogation with synthetic and artificial protein catalysts are inadequate due to neglect of treatment of the conformational dynamics relating reaction control and energetics. My research focuses on designing switchable artificial metalloproteins in order to study how macroscopic conformational change produces local structural and electronic change in the protein active site.