What if we could engineer a tiny protein cage to protect its cargo, but open when it reaches the right environment? This was the question behind my Laidlaw research project. 

Encapsulins are self-assembling bacterial protein nanocages that can package and protect molecular cargo. This makes them interesting platforms for applications such as drug delivery, but their high stability also creates a challenge: how do we control when the cargo is released?

One possible trigger is pH. The tumour microenvironment is often mildly acidic compared with healthy tissues, providing a potential trigger for pH-responsive release systems. 
My project explored whether an encapsulin could be engineered with GALA, a pH-sensitive peptide, so that changes in acidity alter the assembly of the cage. 

T4GALA, an engineered encapsulin, was tested across different pH conditions, and then Green fluorescent protein, GFP,  was introduced as a model cargo to explore cargo loading and release. 

This project gave me the opportunity to take an engineered protein system through expression, purification, and characterization, while also opening up new questions for future work. 

I'll be sharing my poster and full research report here!