Donald Harry Dean

Research Description:

Research Interests:

Protein engineering and biophysical analysis of insecticidal toxins is the major research interest in my laboratory. The ultimate goal of these studies is to understand the structure/function relationships of these proteins to create more specific and environmentally safer pesticides.

One project involves locating the functional domains of insecticidal crystal proteins (ICPs) of Bacillus thuringiensis. Site-directed mutagenesis and homology switches of portions of genes which display different insecticidal activity have created a set of mutants which allows us to identify the specificity domains on two ICPs. Intensive site-directed mutagenesis will reveal which amino acids are involved in the insecticidal activity.