From Protein Production to Molecular Biophysics

Expertise and access to state-of-the-art technologies are provided in the fields of:

1. Production of proteins for R&D;
2. Structural analysis of biomolecules and their stability; and
3. Characterization of molecular interactions.

We develop, implement and manage resources and methodologies in these three fields and all resources are available to all of the scientific community, health services and industry, at the Local, National and International level.

We apply off-the-shelf methods or design customised solutions building on top of the experience and know-how accumulated since 2005.

Please check below what we do in more detail and contact us @ ffsilva@ibmc.up.pt for any queries.

Protein Production

Protein Expression

• Recombinant proteins 
• Single proteins, soluble and membrane proteins
• Protein complexes (co expression)
• Refolding
• Affinity purification of antibodies

Protein Purification

• Preparative and analytical Chromatography
• Affinity, Ion exchange, Size Exclusion, Hidrophobic Interaction and Reverse phase
• Protein, peptides, other biomolecules
• Ultracentrifugation

Structural Analysis of Biomolecules and their Stability

• Secondary and Tertiary structure by Circular Dichroism (CD)
• CD in aqueous (soluble), lipid (membrane) phases and in suspensions
• Conformational changes monitored by CD
• Proteins, Nucleic acids, complexes, etc
• Native Size assessment independent from shape (applicable also to crude samples)
• Charge and size distribution assessment by chromatography
• Stability assessment by
  • Differential Scanning Fluorimetry (vulgo Thermal shift)
  • CD

Molecular Interactions

• Kinetic and Thermodynamic characterization of binding events
• How fast, how slow is binding and unbinding
• Energetics of binding
• How specific (drug targetable) are the interactions
• Stoichiometry
• Label free: 
  • Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) (aka Biacore)
  • Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC)
  • Circular dichroism (CD)
• With probes:
  • Fluorescence Anisotropy Measurements
  • DSF

The platform is engaged in post-graduate education and advanced training actions.

Yearly organisation of a 20 hours (spanning one week) practical course intitled “Protein Purification and Characterization”, a course of the Doctoral Program in Molecular and Cell Biiology (MCBiology)

Organization of the EMBO practical Biomolecular Interactions analysis: from molecules to cells, a course on the study of molecular interactions by biophysical and microscopy approaches

The 2020 Edition was postoned to 2021 and will take place from 25 October until 29 October 2021.

Sign up here to be notified when the website is launched.

The P4EU network initiative was started in 2010 to establish a platform for the exchange of information, know-how and materials between expertrs in the field of protein expression and purification. We run several initiatives that you can check here.

The Association of Resources for Biophysical Research in Europe (ARBRE)-Molecular Biophysics in Europe (MOBIEU) is an open pan-European network which aims to bring together academic and industrial research infrastructures, core facilities and resource labs that provide access to biophysical instrumentation and expertise for the molecular-scale characterization of biological systems.

Frederico Silva is the coordinator of the Training and human capacity development section of ARBRE-MOBIEU