Protein Expression Center

Jost Vielmetter – Director
Pamela Bjorkman – Faculty Advisor

The Protein Expression Center was established to provide researchers with large amounts of proteins of interest to their work. It is equipped for the small, medium and large scale cultures of a variety of cells, including bacterial, yeast, insect, and mammalian cell lines. We are currently specializing in the use of the baculovirus expression system, a widely used and versatile eukaryotic system which has been used to successfully express thousands of proteins. Depending upon the level of expression of a given protein, quantities ranging from hundreds of micrograms to tens of milligrams may be readily produced using resources at the facility. In addition, the Center is also equipped to perform routine molecular biological techniques, including vector construction and PCR analysis of recombinant viruses, as well as purification of expressed recombinant proteins. The facility resources are also available to investigators who require assistance in tissue culture, even if this does not involve the production of recombinant proteins.