Saacnicteh Toledo Patino

Lab webpage Molecular Bioengineering lab

Saacnicteh is a structural biochemist interested in understanding how proteins emerged and evolved to become sophisticated nanomachines. Her scientific path started at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Germany, where she obtained her Ph.D. in protein engineering. During her doctoral studies, she investigated how nature uses a mix-and-match mechanism similar to Lego bricks to create new proteins from existing building blocks and found that small changes, such as insertions and deletions (InDels), can dramatically modify their architecture and function. She moved to Japan in late 2019 to conduct her postdoctoral studies at OIST, where she dedicated part of her research to understanding the most catalytically diverse enzyme, the Rossmann fold. By studying this multitasking group of proteins, she found out how nature recycles existing building blocks of proteins to build new ones that catalyze fundamentally distinct chemistries, such as methylation and redox. Her current focus is on leveraging her expertise in rational protein engineering and coenzyme evolution to design proteins with electron transfer capabilities, aimed at enhancing sustainable catalysis and energy solutions.