David Ackerley: Victoria University of Wellington

Development of enzymatic tools to improve Zebrafish models for metabolic disease and stem cell-based regenerative medicine.

This research aims to engineer pairs of nitroreductases such that each enzyme in the pair is specific for a particular prodrug substrate. Genes encoding the evolved enzymes will then be sent to John Hopkins University for proof-of-principle testing and application in Zebrafish models of stem cell-based regenerative medicine.