Cyrus Biotechnology Protein Engineering Scientist Amanda Duran to Speak at Precision Medicine & Ion Channel Retreat 2019

SEATTLE, WA July 26, 2019 — Cyrus Biotechnology, Inc., a Seattle-based biotech software company commercializing Rosetta, the most advanced computational protein design platform, announced today that Dr Amanda Duran, Cyrus Bio Protein Engineering Scientist, will speak at the Precision Medicine & Ion Channel Retreat in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

DETAILS:

PMICR 2019 Program

http://www.aurorabiomed.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Final-2019-Program-1.pdf

ABSTRACT:

Ion channels are one of the largest drug targets likely due to their role in regulation and signal transduction. KCNQ1 is a voltage-gated potassium channel associated with cardiac arrhythmias such as Long-QT syndrome. Several structures of the voltage sensing domain (VSD) or the pore domain have been resolved; however, there are no known structures of a resting VSD. In order to understand the mutational effects, the inactive VSD, closed pore state of KCNQ1 was modeled using Rosetta. RosettaCM enables the use of multiple templates in addition to fragment insertion during homology modeling. Knowledge from experimental studies of the charged residue pairing placement in the VSD was used as a filter during model selection. Finally, MolProbity, ProCheck, and PoreWalker were used to further assess the quality of the selected models. Several methods exist for modeling mutation-induced stability changes from proteins of known structure or homology models; however, many of these methods perform poorly for membrane proteins. The amount of mutant thermostability data that is available for membrane proteins is sparse, making it nearly impossible to train an accurate predictor for the stabilizing effects of mutations. In a membrane protein benchmark, Rosetta outperformed most of the 10 methods assessed and was able to correctly classify nearly 70% of mutations as destabilizing. Combining these modeling efforts may help with identifying disease-associated mutations in the future. Cyrus Bench is capable of rapidly assessing the stabilizing effects of single point mutations using the newest Rosetta scoring function and thoroughly benchmarked protocols. For more information on Cyrus Bench, click here. About PMICR 2019 Over the last 16 years, the Precision Medicine and Ion Channel Retreat (PMICR) has evolved into one of the premier conferences for drug discovery, genomics and ion channel research. The 17th annual PMICR strives to continue this proud tradition by providing a platform to explore cutting edge technology and innovative research from around the world. This diverse, thought-provoking event allows academic and industry researchers to share knowledge, exchange ideas and establish fruitful partnerships. The Retreat is designed to maximize networking opportunities, with social events providing an intimate & relaxed atmosphere. http://www.aurorabiomed.com/precision-medicine-ion-channel-retreat-2019/ About Cyrus Biotechnology Cyrus Biotechnology, Inc. is a privately-held biotechnology software company offering Cyrus Bench®, a SaaS platform for protein engineering to accelerate discovery of biologics and small molecules for the Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical, Chemical, Consumer Products and Synthetic Biology industries. Cyrus Bench® is based on the Rosetta software from Prof. David Baker’s laboratory at the University of Washington, the most powerful protein engineering software available. Cyrus customers include 12 of the top 20 Global Pharmaceutical firms and is financed by leading investors in both Technology and Biotechnology, including Trinity Ventures, Orbimed, Springrock Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and W Fund. https://www.cyrusbio.com