Recent Lab News

4/2013 A paper entitled “A designed, phase changing RTX-based peptide for efficient bioseparations” by Shur, Dooley, Blenner, Baltimore and Banta was published in BioTechniques. The paper was also highlighted by the Editors in the BioSpotlight.

4/2013 A paper entitled “Functional assembly of a multi-enzyme cascade on the surface-displayed trifunctional scaffold for enhanced NADH production” by Liu, Banta, and Chen was published in Chemical Communications.

4/2013 The Banta Lab was active with 3 platform presentations at the 245th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans, LA. Tushar Patel gave a talk entitled “Whole-cell Biocatalysts for CO2 Hydration”. Kevin Dooley gave a talk entitled “Engineering the repeats-in-toxin (RTX) domain for molecular recognition”. And, Sudipta Majumdar gave a talk entitled “Conversion of electrical energy to isobutanol using chemolithoautotrophic iron oxidizing bacteria Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans”. Professor Banta is the currently the Chair-Elect for the BIOT division of ACS.

3/2013 A Highlight article entitled “Self-Assembling Enzyme Networks—A New Path towards Multistep Bioelectrocatalytic Systems” by Uwe Schroder was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition and this article highlighted our recent manuscript “Complete oxidation of methanol in biobattery devices using a hydrogel created from three modified dehydrogenases” by Kim et al.

2/2013 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Bioelectrocatalysis: We can do more than just Vmax” at the Indo-US Workshop on Electrocatalytic Materials for Fuel and Biofuel Cells held at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India.

2/2013 A paper entitled “Rearranging and concatenating a native RTX domain to understand sequence modularity” by Shur and Banta was published in Protein Engineering, Design and Selection.

2/2013 A paper entitled “Modular exchange of substrate-binding loops alters both substrate and cofactor specificity in a member of the aldo-keto reductase superfamily” by Campbell, Chuang and Banta was published in Protein Engineering, Design and Selection.

1/2013 A paper entitled “Complete oxidation of methanol in biobattery devices using a hydrogel created from three modified dehydrogenases” by Kim, Campbell, Yu, Minteer and Banta was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. The editors highlighted this publication as a Hot Paper.

12/2012 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Engineering the Beta Roll peptide to participate in useful biomolecular interactions" in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University in Princeton, NJ.

12/2012 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome a new postdoctoral fellow into the lab group. Dr. Jennifer Haghpanah earned a PhD in Chemistry from NYU-Poly. Welcome aboard Jennifer!

12/2012 Four new PhD students have joined the research group. Beyza Bulutoglu, Kristen Garcia, Woojin Kim, and Harun Osbakir are all joining the Banta Lab. Welcome aboard everyone!

11/2012 A paper entitled “Electrochemical reduction of nitrite to ammonia for use in a bioreactor” by Sahin, Lin, Khunjar, Chandran, Banta and West was published in Journal of the Electrochemical Society.

10/2012 Another new member has joined the lab. Avery Rebecca Banta was born on October 6, 2012.

9/2012 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome a bunch of new personnel into the group this semester. Beyza Bulutoglu, Kristen Garcia, Woojin Kim, Sameera Namazi and Harun Osbakir are joining the group for graduate researcher rotations, and Raymond Bellon and Devante Bledsoe are joining as undergrad researchers. Welcome aboard everyone!

9/2012 A paper entitled “Biomass production from electricity using ammonia as an electron carrier in a reverse microbial fuel cell” by Khunjar, Sahin, West, Chandran and Banta was published in PLoS ONE.

8/2012 Professor Banta has received a new 1 year grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is entitled "Evolution of Beta Roll Peptides to Create Allosterically-Regulated Binding Domains Using Bacterial Cell Surface Display".

7/2012 Students from the Double Discovery Center at Columbia University visited and performed and experiment in the Banta Lab. See the Pictures section for a image of the group.

7/2012 Professor Banta has received a new 3 year grant from the Army Research Office. The project is entitled "Engineering of an Extremely Thermostable Alpha/Beta Barrel Scaffold To Serve as a High Affinity Molecular Recognition Element For Use in Sensor Applications".

7/2012 Oren Shur successfully defended his PhD thesis, the eighth from the Banta group. His thesis was entitled "Engineering the repeats-in-toxin domain for biotechnology applications". Congratulations Dr. Shur!

7/2012 A paper entitled "Effect of thermal stability on protein adsorption to silica using homologous aldo-keto reductases" by Felsovalyi, Patel, Mangiagalli, Kumar and Banta was published in Protein Science.

7/2012 Flora Felsovalyi successfully defended her PhD thesis, the seventh from the Banta group. Her thesis was entitled "Mechanistic Study of the Adsorption and Desorption of Proteins on Silica". Congratulations Dr. Felsovalyi!

7/2012 Asli Sahin successfully defended her PhD thesis, the sixth from the Banta group. Her thesis was entitled "Development of Electrochemical Methods for Detection of Pesticides and Biofuel Production". Congratulations Dr. Sahin!

6/2012 A paper entitled "Engineering of an Environmentally Responsive Beta Roll Peptide for Use as a Calcium-Dependent Cross-Linking Domain for Peptide Hydrogel Formation" by Dooley, Kim, Lu, Tu and Banta was published in Biomacromolecules.

5/2012 Professor Banta is helping to mentor a new IGEM team formed with Columbia and Cooper Union students.

5/2012 Professor Banta gave an invited research seminar entitled "Engineering Enzymes to Self-Assemble into Catalytic Biomaterials" at the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Institute for Biotechnology at St. John’s University in Queens, NY.

5/2012 Professor Banta gave a talk entitled ""Electrofuel" Production Using Ammonia or Iron as Redox Mediators in Reverse Microbial Fuel Cells" at the 221st Electrochemical Society Meeting in Seattle, WA.

4/2012 Professor Banta has received a new 4 year grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Researh. The project entitled "3-D Enzymatic Nanomaterial Architectures For Energy Harvesting" will be a collaboration with David Baker, U of Washington, S. Minteer, U of Utah, and P. Atanassov, U of New Mexico.

4/2012 Banta Lab alumnus Mark Blenner has accepted a faculty position in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University. Congratulations Professor Blenner!

4/2012 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome a new postdoctoral fellow into the lab group. Dr. Sudipta Majumdar earned a PhD in Chemistry from Wesleyan University and recently was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in the Energy Biosciences Institute. Welcome aboard Sudipta!

3/2012 The Banta Lab was very active with 6 platform presentations at the 243rd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, CA. Tushar Patel gave a talk entitled “Development of a whole-cell biocatalyst for permanent carbon capture and storage: Immobilization of carbonic anhydrase in the periplasmic space of E. coli”. Oren Shur gave a talk entitled “Development of a calcium-responsive beta roll peptide as a purification tag for non-chromatographic recombinant protein purification”. Kevin Dooley gave a talk entitled “Development of an engineered beta roll motif for the creation of stimulus-responsive proteinaceous hydrogels”. Flora Felsovalyi gave two talks, the first was entitled “Assessing the impact of thermal stability on protein adsorption behavior using naturally occurring enzymes of the aldo-keto reducatse superfamily” and the second was entitled "What determines protein desorption behavior?" And Tim Kernan gave a talk entitled “Electrofuel production using chemolithoautotrophic iron oxidizing bacteria in a reverse microbial fuel cell”.

2/2012 Professor Banta presented a poster entitled "Non-Photosynthetic Biofuels from CO2" at the third ARPA-E Annual Energy Innovation Summit in Washington D.C.

1/2012 A paper entitled "An Enzymatic biofuel cell utilizing a biomimetic cofactor" by Campbell, Meredith, Minteer and Banta was published in Chemical Communications.

1/20112 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "A Plasmid Display Platform for the Identification of New Functional Cell Penetrating Peptides" at Roche, Nutley, NJ.

12/2011 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome two new graduate student into the lab group. Roel Mercardo and Xiaozheng Li have joined the research group this semester and will be coadvised with Prof. Alan West.

12/2011 A paper entitled "Protein engineering of a glucose oxidase for direct electron transfer via targeted gold nanoparticle conjugation" by Holland, Lau, Brozik, Atanassov and Banta was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

11/2011 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University in New Haven, CT.

10/2011 Professor Banta gave an invited research seminar entitled "Development of the Beta Roll Motif as a Novel Biomolecular Recognition Scaffold" at the 25th Anniversary CABM Sympossium at Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ.

10/2011 A paper entitled "Rapid development of new protein biosensors utilizing peptides obtained via phage display" by Wu, Park, Dooley, Cropek, West and Banta was published in the journal PLoS One.

10/2011 Professor Banta gave an invited research seminar entitled "Electrofuels" in the 2011 Biofuels Conference at Mississippi State University in Starkville, MS.

10/2011 A paper entitled "Reversibility of the Adsorption of Lysozyme on Silica" by Felsovalyi, Mangiagalli, Bureau, Kumar, and Banta was published in the journal Langmuir.

9/2011 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "The Beta Roll Motif as a Novel Scaffold for Engineering Biomolecular Recognition" in the Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry Seminar series at the City College of CUNY in New York, NY.

8/2011 Professor Banta gave an invited talk entitled “A Plasmid Display System for the Identification of New Functional Cell Penetrating Peptides” at the 4th Annual Symposium on Integrating Nanotechnology with Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

8/2011 A paper entitled "Pushing the limits of automatic computational protein design: computational design, expression, and characterization of a large synthetic protein based on a fungal laccase scaffold" by Glykys, Szilvay, Tortosa, Suarez Diez, Jaramillo and Banta was published in the journal Systems and Synthetic Biology.

7/2011 A paper entitled "A dual enzyme electrochemical assay for the detection of organophosphorus compounds using organophosphorus hydrolase and horseradish peroxidase" by Sahin, Dooley, Cropek, West and Banta was published in the journal Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

6/2011 A paper entitled "Attenuation of astrocyte activation by TAT mediated-delivery of a peptide JNK inhibitor" by Kang, Simon, Gao, Banta and Morrison III was published in the journal Journal of Neurotrauma.

6/2011 A paper entitled "Engineering of a redox protein for DNA-directed assembly" by Szilvay, Brocato, Ivnitski, Li, De La Iglesia, Lau, Chi, Werner-Washburne, Banta and Atanassov was published in the journal Chemical Communications.

5/2011 A paper entitled "An unusual cell penetrating peptide identified using a plasmid display-based functional selection platform" by Gao, Simon, Morrison III and Banta was published in the journal ACS Chemical Biology.

5/2011 Elliot Campbell successfully defended his PhD thesis, the fifth from the Banta group. His thesis was entitled "Towards a General Dehydrogenase Enzymatic Scaffold for Industrial Biocatalysis". Congratulations Dr. Campbell!

4/2011 Banta Lab alumnus Ian Wheeldon has accepted a faculty position in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at University California, Riverside. Congratulations Professor Wheeldon!

4/2011 Biotechniques featured an article from the Banta Lab that is currently in press at ACS Chemical Biology in their online news column.

4/2011 A paper entitled "Monitoring the conformational changes of an intrinsically disordered peptide using a Quartz Crystal Microbalance" by Shur, Wu, Cropek and Banta was published in the journal Protein Science.

3/2011 The Banta Lab was extremely active at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anameim, CA. Professor Banta served as the Academic Prorgram Coordinator for the BIOT division. He also gave a platform talk entitled "Development of self-assembling enzymatic biomaterials for methanol oxidation to carbon dioxide in a biofuel cell". Elliot Campbell gave a talk entitled “Engineering a thermostable dehydrogenase to utilize biomimetic cofactors to improve enzymatic biofuel cell performance”. Oren Shur gave a talk entitled “Beta roll motifs as a novel scaffold for engineering biomolecular recognition”. And Asli Sahin gave a talk entitled “Biofuels from CO2 using ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in a reverse microbial fuel cell”

3/2011 Professor Banta gave an invited talk entitled “Biofuels from CO2 using Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria in a Reverse Microbial Fuel Cell” at the second ARPA-E Annual Energy Innovation Summit in Washington D.C.

2/2011 Professor Banta has received tenure at Columbia University

1/2011 A paper entitled "TAT is not capable of transcellular delivery across an intact endothelial monolayer in vitro" by Simon, Gao, Kang, Banta and Morrison III was published in the journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering.

1/2011 A paper entitled "A plasmid display platform for the selection of peptides exhibiting a functional cell-penetrating phenotype" by Gao, Simon, Morrison III and Banta was published in the journal Biotechnolog Progress.

1/2011 Professor Banta chaired the "Evolutionary Engineering of Proteins" session and have gave a platform talk entitled "A Plasmid Display Platform for the Identification of New Functional Cell Penetrating Peptides" at SBE's 3rd International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering in San Francisco, CA.

12/2010 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome another new graduate student into the lab group. Jason Candreva has joined the research group this semester.

12/2010 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" in the Chemical Biology Initiative Seminar series at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN.

12/2010 Professor Banta gave an invited seminar entitled "Selection of Novel Cell Penetrating Peptides Using Plasmid Display" at the 4th Annual Advances in Biomolecular Engineering: Biological Design conference at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York, NY.

11/2010 The Banta group was very active at the 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, UT. Professor Banta was the Area 15C (Bioengineering) coordinator for the meeting. Elliot Campbell gave a talk entitled "Protein Engineering of a Thermostable Alcohol Dehydrogenase to Improve Activity with Biomimetic Cofactors and Alternate Substrates". Flora Felsovalyi gave a talk entitled "Evaluating the Role of Solid Surfaces in Inducing Conformational Changes of Adsorbed and Desorbed Proteins". Asli Sahin gave a talk entitled "Dual Enzyme Biosensor for Detection of Organophosphorus Compounds Using Organophosphorus Hydrolase and Horseradish Peroxidase". Oren Shur gave two talks at the meeting. The first was entitled "Directed Evolution of the Intrinsically Disordered and Allosterically Regulated Beta Roll Subdomain for Biomolecular Recognition" and the second was entitled "Structure/Function Analysis for the Optimization of the Beta Roll Motif as a Novel Scaffold for Engineering Biomolecular Recognition". Our collaborators at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave two talks. The first was entitled "Quartz Crystal Balance (QCM) and Electrochemical Impedance Detection of the Protein Biomarker Troponin I Using Peptides Obtained From the Biopanning of a Phage-Display Library" and the second was entitled "On Chip Electrochemical Detection of Biomarkers for Detection of Water Borne Toxins".

11/2010 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ.

10/2010 A paper entitled "Increased delivery of TAT across an endothelial monolayer following ischemic injury" by Simon, Gao, Banta, and Morrison III was published in the journal Neuroscience Letters.

10/2010 A paper entitled "Broadening the cofactor specificity of a thermostable alcohol dehydrogenase using rational protein design results in novel kinetic transient behavior" by Campbell, Wheeldon and Banta was published in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

10/2010 A new Research Scientist has joined the Banta group: Dmitri Ivnitski. Welcome aboard Dmitri!

10/2010 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH.

10/2010 A paper entitled "Development of a troponin I biosensor using a peptide obtained through phage display" by Wu, Cropek, West and Banta was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

10/2010 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" in the Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Chemical and Biological Sciences at NYU Poly in Brooklyn, NY.

9/2010 Two new undergraduate researchers have joined the lab: Zoe Hilbert and Navid Choudhury. And, a new Masters student has joined: Jaya Singh. Welcome aboard guys!

9/2010 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ.

7/2010 A review paper entitled "Protein engineering in the development of functional hydrogels" by Banta, Wheeldon, and Blenner was published in the journal Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering.

7/2010 Research in the Banta Lab has been featured on the website of the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Scineces. Follow this link to see the full article: http://engineering.columbia.edu/prof-banta-qa-genetic-engineering-creating-biofuels

6/2010 Professor Banta gave an invited talk entitled "Protein Engineering for Improved Electron Transfer in Bioelectrocatalysis Applications" in the Biological Electron Transfer and Energy Production Breakout Session at The World Congress of Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing Meeting in Washington D.C.

6/2010 A paper entitled "Catalytic biomaterials: Engineering organophosphate hydrolase to form self-assembling enzymatic hydrogels" by Lu, Wheeldon, and Banta was published in the journal Protein Engineering, Design and Selection.

6/2010 A paper entitled "Calcium-Induced Folding of a Beta Roll Motif Requires C-Terminal Entropic Stabilization" by Blenner, Shur, Szilvay, Cropek, and Banta was published in the journal Journal of Molecular Biology.

5/2010 Three new undergraduate researchers have joined the lab: Victoria Sun, Sara Chuang, and Matthew Baltimore. Welcome aboard guys!

5/2010 Professor Banta has received 2 new ARPA-E grants from the Department of Energy. The first one, in collaboration with Alan West in Chemical Engineering and Kartik Chandran in Earth and Environmental Engineering, will focus on the engineering of an ammonia-oxidizing bacteria used in wastewater treatment to make biofuels in a reverse microbial fuel cell. The second grant, in collaboration with Alissa Park in Earth and Environmental Engineering, will focus on carbon capture and sequestration using immobilized carbonic anhydrase in a novel bioreactor.

5/2010 Professor Banta gave a talk entitled "Engineering Enzymes to Self-Assemble into Catalytic Biomaterials" at a DOD-sponsored workshop on Bio-Directed Assembly in Keystone, CO.

4/2010 Professor Banta gave a keynote talk entitled "Protein Engineering for Bioelectrocatalysis: We Can Do More than Vmax" at the 217th Electrochemical Society Meeting in Vancouver BC, Canada.

3/2010 The Banta Lab was well-represented at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco, CA. Professor Banta served as an Area Coordinator for the Emerging Technologies Sessions. He also gave a platform presentation and two poster presenations. The platform presentation was entitled "A Laccase Protein Engineered for Site-Specific Immobilization on Carbon Nanotube Modified Electrodes" and the posters were entitled "Development of New Electrochemical Biosensors for Protein Biomarker Detection" and "Directed Evolution of Allosterically Regulated Beta Roll Subdomains for Biomolecular Recognition". Asli Sahin gave a platform presentation entitled “Engineering Organophoshphate Hydrolase to Self-Assemble into Hydrogels for Use in Sensing and Decontamination Applications”. And Elliot Campbell gave a platform presentation entitled “Protein Engineering of a Thermostable Alcohol Dehydrogenase: Rational Alteration of Substrate Specificity and Development of a Novel Selection System for Directed Evolution”

2/2010 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" as part of the Science at the Edge Seminar series in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.

1/2010 A paper entitled "High affinity peptides for the recognition of the heart disease biomarker troponin I identified using phage display " by Park, Cropek, and Banta was published in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

1/2010 Dr. Matthew Lluis from the University of Texas has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome aboard Matthew!

12/2009 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome two new graduate student into the lab group. Kevin Dooley and Tushar Patel both joined the research group this semester. Tushar will be co-advised by Professor Sanat Kumar.

12/2009 Dr. Yang Hee Kim from Seoul National University has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome aboard Yang Hee!

11/2009 A paper entitled "A FRET-based method for probing the calcium-dependent conformational behavior of an intrinsically disordered beta roll domain from the Bordetella pertussis adenylate cyclase" by Szilvay, Blenner, Shur, Cropek, and Banta was published in the journal Biochemistry.

11/2009 Professor Banta gave an oral presentation at the Chemical and Biological Defense Science and Technology Conference in Dallas, TX. The talk was entitled "Beta Roll Peptide Structures for Allosterically Controlled Biomolecular Recogonition and Decontamination".

11/2009 Six platform presentations were delivered by members of the Banta group at the 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN. Professor Banta gave a talk entitled "Identification of Troponin I Binding Peptides Using Phage Display for Biosensor Development". Elliot Campbell gave a talk entitled "Cofactor Engineering of a Thermostable Aldo-Keto Reductase Enzyme: Altering Cofactor Specificity and Development of a Novel Directed Evolution Selection Platform". Shan Gao gave a talk entitled "Directed Evolution of Novel Cell Penetrating Peptides for Delivery to the Brain". Oren Shur gave two talks at the meeting. The first was entitled "Directed Evolution of Allosterically Regulated Beta Roll Subdomains for Biomolecular Recognition" and the second was entitled "Engineering Tools for Analysis of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins: Entropic Stabilization Enables a Type I Secretion Calcium Switch". Our collaborators at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave a talk entitled "On Chip Electrochemical Detection of Biomarkers From Cell Cultures On Microfluidic Reactors".

11/2009 Research in the Banta Lab has been featured in the latest edition of Engineering News from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Scineces. Follow this link to see the full article: http://engineering.columbia.edu/web/newsletter/fall_2009/delivering_drugs_faster

9/2009 Shan Gao successfully defended her PhD thesis, the fourth from the Banta group. Her thesis was entitled "Characterization of the TAT cell penetrating peptide and directed evolution of new cell penetrating peptides for protein and nucleotide delivery to neuronal-like cells". Congratulations Dr. Gao!

8/2009 A paper entitled "A chimeric fusion protein engineered with disparate functionalities— enzymatic activity and self assembly" by Wheeldon, Campbell, and Banta was published in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

8/2009 The Banta Lab was well-represented at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington D.C. Professor Banta served as a chair for the two Advances in Metabolic Engineering sessions. He also gave two platform presentations. The first was entitled “Engineering of Targeted Cell Penetrating Peptides for Delivery to the Brain” and the second was entitled “Engineering Enzymes to Self-Assemble into Hydrogels for Bioelectrocatalysis”. Geza Szilvay gave a platform presentation entitled “The Beta Roll Peptide as a Novel Allosterically-Regulated Scaffold for Biomolecular Recognition”. And Elliot Campbell gave a platform presentation entitled “Towards a general dehydrogenase enzymatic platform: Engineering an alcohol dehydrogenase for self-assembly and for activity with alternative substrates”

7/2009 Mark Blenner successfully defended his PhD thesis, the third from the Banta group. His thesis was entitled "Tools for the Design and Engineering of Stimulus-Responsive Peptides and Intrinsically Disordered Protein Scaffolds". Congratulations Dr. Blenner!

7/2009 Four posters from the Banta group were presented at the 23rd Annual Symposium of the Protein Society in Boston, MA. Geza Szilvay presented a poster entitled "Structural studies of the calcium-dependent conformational behavior of a beta roll peptide". Professor Banta presented posters entitled "Towards a general dehydrogenase enzymatic platform: Engineering an alcohol dehydrogenase for self-assembly and for activity with alternative substrates", "The Beta-Roll Peptide as a Novel Allosterically-Regulated Scaffold for Biomolecular Recognition', and "Engineering Enzymes to Self-Assemble into Hydrogels".

7/2009 The Banta and Morrison Lab Groups had their third annual lunch and afternoon whiffleball game in Riverside Park.

7/2009 A paper entitled "TAT-mediated intracellular protein delivery to primary brain cells is dependent on glycosaminoglycan expression" by Simon, Gao, Kang, Banta, and Morrison III was published in Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

7/2009 Professor Banta presented both an oral and a poster presentation at the Biochemical Engineering XVI meeeting in Burlington, VT. The talk was entitled "The Beta Roll Peptide as a Novel Allosterially-Regulated Scaffold for Biomolecular Recognition". The poster was entitled "Engineering Enzymes to Self-Assemble into Hydrogels".

7/2009 Dr. Jun Wu from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Case Western Reserve University has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome aboard Jun!

7/2009 Professor Scott Banta has been promoted to Associate Professor

6/2009 Professor Banta has been awarded a new 1 year research grant from the National Science Foundation. The title of the project is: "Catalytic Hydrogels from Bifunctional Enzymatic Building Blocks".

6/2009 Professor Banta and his collaborator Professor Barclay Morrison III in the department of Biomedical Engineering have been awarded a new 3 year research grant from the National Science Foundation. The title of the project is: "Directed Evolution of Specific Cell Penetrating Peptides".

6/2009 Shan Gao and Oren Shur both presented poster presentations at the 3rd Annual Advances in Biomolecular Engineering: Protein Design Symposium at the New York Academy of Sciences.

6/2009 Mark Blenner gave a talk entitled "Intrinsically Disordered RTX Motifs as Scaffolds for Engineering Allosterically Controlled Biomolecular Recognition" at the Chemical Biology:Year End Discussion Meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences.

5/2009 Doris Glykys successfully defended her PhD thesis, the second from the Banta group. Her thesis was entitled "Modeling and engineering of oxidoreductase proteins for miniaturized energy applications". Congratulations Dr. Glykys!

5/2009 Professor Banta gave a research seminar entitled "Protein Engineering for Biosensors and Biofuel Cells" in the Department of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM.

4/2009 Oren Shur and Flora Felsovalyi both successfully defended their thesis proposals. And, Asli Sahin passed her qualifying exam. Congratulations guys!

4/2009 A paper entitled "Development of a bacteriophage-based system for the selection of structured peptides" by Chockalingam, Lu and Banta was published in Analytical Biochemistry.

3/2009 Professor Banta has been awarded a Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for a new state-of-the-art Fast Performance Liquid Chromatography (FPLC) system.

3/2009 A paper entitled "Bifunctional chimeric fusion proteins engineered for DNA delivery: Optimization of the protein to DNA ratio" by Gao, Simon, Morrison III and Banta was published in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - General Subjects.

2/2009 A paper entitled "Metabolic Control Analysis of an Enzymatic Biofuel Cell" by Glykys and Banta was published in Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

2/2009 Ian Wheeldon successfully defended his PhD thesis, the first from the Banta group. The thesis was entitled "Bifunctional protein building blocks for functional hydrogel assembly" and Ian was awarded a Dissertation with Distinction. Congratulations Dr. Wheeldon!

1/2009 A platform talk and two posters from the Banta Lab were presented at the Society for Biological Engineers Second International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering in Santa Barbara, CA. The talk, given by Professor Banta was entitled "Enzymatic and Bioactive Hydrogels from Proteinaceous Bifunctional Building Blocks ". Mark Blenner presented a poster entitled "The Beta Roll Peptide as a Reversible, Calcium Sensitive, and Modular Scaffold for Engineering Allosteric Control of Biomolecular Recognition " and Professor Banta presented the second poster entitled "Protein Engineering of a Thermostable Alcohol Dehydrogenase to Alter Cofactor and Substrate Specificities "

12/2008 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome a new graduate student into the lab group. Asli Sahin joined the research group this semester and will be co-advised by Professor Alan West.

12/2008 A paper entitled "Detection of the superoxide radical anion using various alkanethiol monolayers and immobilized cytochrome c" by Chen, West, Cropek and Banta was published in Analytical Chemistry.

11/2008 Don Cropek gave a presentation at the 2008 Chemical and Biological Defense Physical Science and Technology Conference in New Orleans, LA entitled "Beta Roll Peptide Structures for Allosterically Controlled Biomolecular Recognition and Decontamination"

11/2008 Five platform presentations and a poster presentation were delivered by members of the Banta group at the 2008 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Elliot Campbell gave a talk entitled "Protein Engineering of a Thermostable Alcohol Dehydrogenase to Alter Cofactor and Substrate Specificities" Shan Gao gave a talk entitled "DNA Delivery to Neuronal-Like Cells Using Designed Recombinant Fusion Proteins". Doris Glykys gave a talk entitled "Expression and Characterization of a Computationally Designed Laccase-Like Enzyme". Ian Wheeldon gave two talks entitled "Enzymatic Hydrogels from Proteinaceous Bifunctional Building Blocks" and "Self-Assembling Bi-functional Proteins for Bioelectrocatalytic Hydrogels: A Protein Engineering Approach to Advanced Materials Design". And Mark Blenner presented a poster entitled "The Beta Roll as a Reversible, Calcium Sensitive, and Modular Scaffold for the Engineering of Biomolecular Recognition"

11/2008 Professor Banta chaired the "Protein Engineering I: Therapeutics" session and he co-chaired the "Advaces in Biocatalysis I" and "Advances in Biocatalysis II" sessions at the 2008 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.

10/2008 A paper entitled " Bioelectrocatalytic hydrogels from electron-conducting metallopolypeptides coassembled with bifunctional enzymatic building blocks " by Wheeldon, Gallaway, Calabrese Barton and Banta was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

9/2008 Professor Banta gave a seminar entiteld "Self-assembling enzymatic and bioactive hydrogels from bifunctional building blocks" in the Department of Biochemistry at The Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Piscataway, NJ.

8/2008 Two members of Banta lab gave presentations at the 236th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia, PA. Ian Wheeldon gave a talk entitled "Hydrogel forming enzymes: Bifunctional proteins with enzymatic and cross-linking functionalities" and Shan Gao presented a poster entitled "Engineering a plasmid display system for the directed evolution of targeted cell penetrating peptides".

7/2008 Geza Szilvay presented a poster at the 22nd Annual Symposium of the Protein Society in San Diego, CA. The posters was entitled "Expression and characterization of a computationally designed laccase-like protein"

7/2008 Another new member has joined the lab. Max Henry Banta was born on July 12, 2008.

6/2008 Dr. Jong Pil Park from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Northwestern University has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome aboard Jong Pil!

6/2008 Ian Wheeldon, Shan Gao, and Mark Blenner presented poster presentations at the 2nd Annual Advances in Biomolecular Engineering: Protein Design Symposium at City College, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences. Ian Wheeldon's poster won a student award. Congratulations Ian!

6/2008 Professor Banta gave a seminar entiteld "Self-assembling enzymatic and bioactive protein-based hydrogels" at the New York State pavilion of BIO 2008 International Meeting in San Diego, CA.

6/2008 The Banta and Morrison Lab Groups had their second annual lunch and afternoon party in Riverside Park to celebrate the end of the Spring semester.

6/2008 Mark Blenner and Ian Wheeldon presented poster presentations at the Bioactive Systems Symposium at Brooklyn Polytechnic, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences.

5/2008 A paper entitled "Site-directed mutagenesis of the hinge peptide from the hemagglutinin protein: enhancement of the pH-responsive conformational change " by Casali, Banta, Zambonelli, Megeed, and Yarmush was published in Protein Engineering, Design and Selection.

5/2008 Three members of the Banta gave platform presentations at the 2008 Electrochemical Society Meeting in Phoenix, AZ. Professor Banta gave a talk entitled "Enzymatic and bioactive proteinaceous hydrogels from bifunctional building blocks". Dr. Todd Holland gave a talk entitled "Improving Glucose Oxidase Function in Fuel Cells". And, Ian Wheeldon gave a talk entitled "Electron-conducting hydrogels from a bifunctional metallo-polypeptide"

5/2008 Professor Scott Banta and his collaborator Professor Barclay Morrison III in the department of Biomedical Engineering presented a seminar at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals entitled "Development of Methods to enable the Directed Evolution of Cell Penetrating Peptides for Targeted Brain Cell Delivery".

4/2008 Elliot Campbell and Ruel McKenzie both successfully defended their thesis proposals. And, Oren Shur passed his qualifying exam. Congratulations guys!

3/2008 Professor Banta and his collaborator Professor Barclay Morrison III in the department of Biomedical Engineering have been awarded a Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) Award from the Army Research Office (ARO) for a new state-of-the-art Flow Cytometer.

3/2008 A paper entitled "Oxygen-reducing enzyme cathodes produced from SLAC, a small laccase from Streptomyces coelicolor" by Gallaway, Wheeldon, Rincon, Atanassov, Banta, and Calabrese Barton was published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

2/2008 A paper entitled "Characterization of the 4D5Flu single-chain antibody with a stimulus-responsive elastin-like peptide linker: A potential reporter of peptide linker conformation " by Blenner and Banta was published in Protein Science.

1/2008 Dr. Geza Szilvay from the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland and the University of Helsinki has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome aboard Geza!

12/2007 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome a new graduate student into the lab group. Oren Shur (from Columbia) joined the research group this semester.

11/2007 Five members of the Banta gave platform presentations at the 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, UT. Dr. Karu Chockalingam gave a talk entitled "Directed Evolution of Structured Peptides". Shan Gao gave a talk entitled "Engineering Of Peptides For The Targeted Delivery Of Proteins And DNA Into Brain Cells". Doris Glykys gave a talk entitled "Metabolic Control Analysis For The Optimization Of Biofuel Cell Kinetic Performance". Ian Wheeldon gave a talk entitled "Self-Assembling Bioactive Protein-Based Hydrogels With Tunable Structural Properties". And Mark Blenner gave a talk entitled "Single-Chain Antibody Based Peptide Conformational Change Sensor: A Tool For The Directed Evolution Of Stimulus Responsive Peptides"

11/2007 Professor Banta chaired sessions entitled "In honor of Ed Leonard on the occasion of his 75th Birthday I" and "In honor of Ed Leonard on the occasion of his 75th Birthday II" at the 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, UT

10/2007 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome a graduate student into the lab group. Flora Felsovalyi from Becton Dickinson joined the research group this semester.

10/2007 Professor Banta and his collaborator Dr. Donald Cropek at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been awarded a 3 year basic research grant for combating weapons of mass destruction entitled "Beta-roll Peptide Structures for Allosterically Controlled Biomolecular Recognition and Decontamination " from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. We will be hiring a postdoctoral fellow to work on this project. See the Job Openings for more information.

10/2007 A paper entitled "Bioactive Proteinaceous Hydrogels from Designed Bi-Functional Building Blocks" by Wheeldon, Calabrese Barton and Banta was published in Biomacromolecules.

9/2007 Professor Banta and his collaborator Dr. Donald Cropek at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been awarded a 3 year basic research grant entitled "Directed evolution of allosteric binding peptides" from the U.S. Army. We will be hiring a postdoctoral fellow to work on this project. See the Job Openings for more information.

9/2007 Professor Banta gave a seminar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of Tennessee entitled "Engineering of Stimulus-Responsive Peptides: Applications in Bioelectrocatalysis and Biosensing".

8/2007 Professor Banta's involvement in the AFOSR MURI program for enzymatic biofuel cells was featured in The Electrochemical Society's Summer 2007 issue of Interface.

8/2007 The Banta lab was well represented at the 234th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Boston MA. Professor Banta gave a talk entitled "Directed evolution of conformational changes in peptides" and he presented a poster entitled "Bioactive protein-based hydrogels for functional bioelectrode construction". Shan Gao presented her poster entitled "Directed evolution of targeted cell penetrating peptides for trans-BBB delivery".

7/2007 Professor Banta presented 3 posters at the 21st Annual Symposium of the Protein Society in Boston, MA. The posters were entitled "Bioactive protein-based hydrogels for functional bioelectrode construction", "Directed evolution of targeted cell penetrating peptides for trans-BBB delivery", and "Directed evolution of conformational changes in peptides".

7/2007 Professor Banta presented 3 posters at the Biochemical Engineering XV meeting in Quebec City, Canada. The posters were entitled "Bioactive protein-based hydrogels for functional bioelectrode construction", "Directed evolution of targeted cell penetrating peptides for trans-BBB delivery", and "Directed evolution of conformational changes in peptides".

6/2007 Professor Banta gave a seminar at Ecole Polytechnique in France entitled "Peptide Engineering: Applications in Nanotechnology, Bioelectrocatalysis, and Drug Delivery". He was hosted by Professor Alfonso Jaramillo as part of their 2005 Alliance Call for Joint Project Award.

6/2007 Dr. J. Todd Holland from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Todd will predominantly work in Dr. Susan Brozik's lab at predominantly at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque New Mexico. Welcome Aboard Todd!

5/2007 The Banta and Morrison Lab Groups held a spring cookout in Riverside Park to celebrate the end of the Spring semester. Check out the Pictures section for some shots from the afternoon.

5/2007 A paper entitled "Design and Application of Stimulus-Responsive Peptide Systems" by Chockalingam, Blenner and Banta was published in Protein Engineering, Design and Selection.

4/2007 Mark Blenner, Shan Gao, Doris Glykys and Ian Wheeldon all gave excellent third year graduate student seminars to the department. Nice Job!

4/2007 Elliot Campbell and Ruel McKenzie both passed their qualifying exams. Congratulations guys!

4/2007 Professor Scott Banta and his collaborator Professor Barclay Morrison III in the department of Biomedical Engineering have been awarded a 2 year R21 research grant from the National Institutes of Health. The title of the project is: "Delivery systems for precision brain cell targeting".

4/2007 Professor Banta presented a talk entitled "Directed Evolution of Cell Penetrating Peptides for Therapeutic Delivery Across the Blood Brain Barrier to Specific Cellular Targets" at the 7th Annual Symposium of the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research in Baltimore, MD.

4/2007 Dr. Xiaojun Chen from Nanyang Technological University has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome aboard Xiaojun!

3/2007 A new paper entitled "Contribution of gene expression to metabolic fluxes in hypermetabolic livers induced through burn injury and cecal ligation and puncture in rats" by Banta et al was published in Biotechnology and Bioengineering. The paper is featured in the Editor's Spotlight.

3/2007 Professor Banta and his collaborators Professor Sanat Kumar and Professor Nina Shapley have been awarded a Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for a new state-of-the-art Circular Dichroism Spectrometer.

3/2007 Professor Banta gave a seminar in the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical and Biological Engineering at Colorado State University entitled "Engineering of Stimulus-Responsive Peptides: Applications in Bioelectrocatalysis and Biosensing".

3/2007 Professor Banta gave a seminar in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at University of Wyoming entitled "Peptide Engineering: Applications in Nanotechnology, Bioelectrocatalysis, and Drug Delivery".

2/2007 A new paper entitled "Engineering Protein and Peptide Building Blocks for Nanotechnology" by Banta et al was published in the Journal of Nanoscience Nanotechnology.

1/2007 Two posters from the Banta Lab were presented at the Society for Biological Engineers First International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering in San Diego, CA. The posters were entitled "Directed Evolution of Peptide Conformational Changes" and "Directed Evolution of Targeted Cell Penetrating Peptides for Trans-BBB Delivery"

12/2006 The Banta Lab is pleased to welcome two new graduate students into the lab group. Elliot Campbell (from RPI) and Ruel McKenzie (from Brooklyn Poly) joined the research group this semester.

12/2006 Professor Banta's involvement in the AFOSR MURI program for enzymatic biofuel cells was featured in the Fall 2006 issue of Engineering News of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia.

11/2006 Professor Banta served as Co-chair for the Protein Engineering I and Protein Engineering II sessions and the Intracellular Processes session at the 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA. Members of the Banta group also presented a poster at the meeting entitled "Directed Evolution of Peptide Conformational Changes"

11/2006 Alfonso Jaramillo from the Ecole Polytechinque gave a talk at Columbia entitled: "Computational design of proteins with enzymatic function". Alfonso visited Professor Banta at Columbia to discuss the most recent progress on their 2005 Alliance Call for Joint Project Award. Professor Banta plans to visit Alfonso in Paris early next summer.

9/2006 Professor Banta served as Co-chair for the Metabolic Engineering and Analysis of Tissue Function session at the 2006 IEEE International Conference of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in New York, NY.

8/2006 Professor Banta gave a seminar in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute entitled "Directed Evolution of Peptides: Applications in Nanotechnology and Bioelectrocatalysis".

8/2006 A new member has joined the lab. Zoe Alexandra Banta was born on August 9, 2006.

8/2006 Professor Banta will teach his graduate elective course this fall entitled "CHEN E4800 Protein Engineering". This year it will be recorded so that it will be available around the world on the Columbia Video Network.

7/2006 Dr. Karu Chockalingam from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome aboard Karu!

5/2006 The 2005 Alliance Call for Joint Project Award was given to Professor Banta and his collaborator Alfonso Jaramillo at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. The joint project is entitled "Improved Biofuel Cells through Protein Engineering and Computational Physics".

4/2006 Mark Blenner, Shan Gao, Doris Glykys and Ian Wheeldon all successfully defended their thesis proposals. Congratulations!

4/2006 Professor Banta presented a talk entitled "Directed Evolution of Cell Penetrating Peptides for Therapeutic Delivery Across the Blood Brain Barrier to Specific Cellular Targets" at the 6th Annual Symposium of the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research in Baltimore, MD.

3/2006 Professor Scott Banta and his collaborators have been awarded a 5 year $3.5 million dollar Multi University Research Initiative (MURI) grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the Department of Defense. The title of the grant is: "Fundamentals and Bioengineering of Enzymatic Fuel Cells". The Principle Investigator is Plamen Atanassov at the University of New Mexico. Here is a Press Release from U.S. Senator Domenici from New Mexico. Other collaborators on the MURI grant are from Sandia National Labs, Saint Louis University, and Michigan State University.

3/2006 Two book chapters written by Professor Banta are being published this month in the Third Edition of The Biomedical Engineering Handbook (CRC Press). The chapters are entitled "Protein Engineering" and "Metabolic Engineering".

11/2005 Professor Scott Banta was named a James D. Watson Investigator Award winner for 2005 by the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research (NYSTAR). The title of the winning proposal was "Peptide Conformational Change Sensors for Nanotechnology and the Study of Neurodegeneration".

11/2005 The recent research project funded by the Brain Trust was featured in ALS Alert, which is the newsletter of the Robert Packard Center for ALS research at Johns Hopkins.

11/2005 Professor Banta served as a CoChair for the Systems Engineering Approaches in Biology session at the 2005 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting in Cincinnati, OH.

9/2005 Professor Banta presented a research seminar entitled "Applications of Protein Engineering and Metabolic Engineering: Vitamin C, Hepatic Metabolism, and Biofuel Cells" at the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, NM.

08/2005 Professor Scott Banta and his collaborator Professor Barclay Morrison III in the department of Biomedical Engineering have been awarded a project grant from the Brain Trust. The title of the research project is: "Directed Evolution of Cell Penetrating Peptides for Therapeutic Delivery Across the Blood Brain Barrier to Specific Cellular Targets."