Congratulations to Jiaul! In the same week he had his first primary research paper accepted and also submitted his PhD thesis. Jiaul first contacted Simon while at UQ in Brisbane looking for research experience after completing his BSc (Hons) in Melbourne. As we had plans to branch out into protein engineering for biosensor development, Jiaul established new expertise in the group and moved with Kye down to Melbourne to help Simon establish the NEL. His thesis on the design, construction and evaluation of engineered antibody-based biosensors has opened up a range of new opportunities within and beyond the group.
Jiaul also had his first primary paper accepted in Analytical Chemistry (IF = 6.3) in which he describes mutating antibodies with unnatural amino acid fluorophores to develop an optical biosensor for proteins. He described that by mutating the dye "Anap" into the binding interface of an anti-EGFR antibody, he observed significant shifts in the emission spectrum of the dye when EGFR bound to the antibody. Great stuff!