A large research grant from the European Union to Dr. Little Alfonte

Dr. Little Alfonte from the Department of Biotechnology Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev received a research grant from the European Research Council (ERC), worth 1.4 million euros.

Dr. Alfonte received the grant for the development of a cell-free system that combines unnatural amino acids (the building blocks of protein) into proteins. The application of combining unnatural amino acids in proteins can be used both by researchers dealing with basic biological questions and for diagnostics and by the therapeutic protein production industry. Unnatural amino acids give proteins new properties that were not present in the same protein before, some exist in nature and some do not. This could allow the engineering of completely new proteins with new activity.

The short name for the project is: Prot-Lego. From the Lego language of proteins: means the production of new building blocks for the protein system which can be likened to Lego building blocks. The advantage of such a cell-free system is, for example, the possibility of using amino acids that are toxic to the living organism, such amino acids can be used in research for the purpose of understanding various physical processes, for example, electron transitions between proteins or to decipher the structure of a protein crystal. Other amino acids are those that cannot cross the living cell membrane, due to their certain properties and therefore were never "selected" in the evolution process. In a cellless system they will be able to integrate into the protein relatively easily.

The ERC grant is awarded to independent researchers, approximately 3-10 years after receiving the Ph.D. This is a larger grant than any other research grant (usually between 1-1.5 million euros) and is given for five years. The success rates of those applying for the research grant are very low and usually range between 5-10%. Part of the decision to receive the grant is based on the past achievements of the applicant researcher.

It should be noted that Dr. Michael Mailer, Dr. Alfonte's partner and a researcher in the chemistry department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, received a similar grant from the ERC ב (1.4 million euros) last year for research on chemical communication between bacteria and eukaryotes. As far as is known, they are the only couple who received the same prestigious grant from the ERC.