Naohiro Terasaka

This study evolves an artificial nucleocapsid from a circularly permuted bacterial protein cage, revealing heterogeneous cage architectures with distinct subunit arrangements and conformations.

The paper optimizes cell-free gene expression in microdroplets to enhance protein yield from single-copy DNA templates, achieving ~94 nM expression from ~0.12 pM DNA.

The paper demonstrates splitting a 240-subunit nucleocapsid into two fragments to create a 480-subunit two-component capsid with new surface sites for functionalization.

The paper develops an orthogonal initiation system for efficient N-terminal noncanonical amino acid incorporation in cell-free translation without disrupting the native methionine pathway.

This paper develops a system for in vitro cargo-directed assembly of nonviral nucleocapsids with controlled size and shape, demonstrating encapsulation of various cargo molecules and morphological changes induced by DNA origamis.

This paper develops a cell-free directed evolution platform using droplet microfluidics to rapidly evolve RNA polymerases with new functions and applications.