Publications by authors named "M Shelby"
Article Synopsis
- - Chlamydia is a widespread bacterial STD that often goes unnoticed, creating a need for a preventive vaccine to address its serious health risks.
- - Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) allows for quick and adaptable production of vaccine proteins, demonstrated by producing the chlamydial CT584 protein for testing in mice.
- - Although CT584 prompted strong antibody responses, it failed to effectively protect against chlamydia infection, highlighting CFPS's potential for producing other antigens even if this candidate wasn't successful.
Article Synopsis
- Counter diffusion is a superior method for growing large, high-quality protein crystals compared to traditional techniques, producing better diffraction data and structures.
- The article presents user-friendly designs for counter-diffusion chambers in a 2D microfluidic chip, allowing for efficient crystal growth and preservation.
- This innovative approach maintains crystal hydration for extended periods, simplifies chip fabrication using common materials, and enhances crystallography capabilities by minimizing sample handling and background scatter.
is the most prevalent bacterial sexually transmitted pathogen worldwide. Since chlamydial infection is largely asymptomatic with the potential for serious complications, a preventative vaccine is likely the most viable long-term answer to this public health threat. Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) utilizes the cellular protein manufacturing machinery decoupled from the requirement for maintaining cellular viability, offering the potential for flexible, rapid, and de-centralized production of recombinant protein vaccine antigens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSerial crystallography at large facilities, such as x-ray free-electron lasers and synchrotrons, evolved as a powerful method for the high-resolution structural investigation of proteins that are critical for human health, thus advancing drug discovery and novel therapies. However, a critical barrier to successful serial crystallography experiments lies in the efficient handling of the protein microcrystals and solutions at microscales. Microfluidics are the obvious approach for any high-throughput, nano-to-microliter sample handling, that also requires design flexibility and rapid prototyping to deal with the variable shapes, sizes, and density of crystals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe development of x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) light sources and serial crystallography methodologies has led to a revolution in protein crystallography, enabling the determination of previously unobtainable protein structures and near-atomic resolution of otherwise poorly diffracting protein crystals. However, to utilize XFEL sources efficiently demands the continuous, rapid delivery of a large number of difficult-to-handle microcrystals to the x-ray beam. A recently developed fixed-target system, in which crystals of interest are enclosed within a sample holder, which is rastered through the x-ray beam, is discussed in detail in this Perspective.
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