Scripps Research Front Row Lecture: Accelerating Evolution to Create New Medicines

Christian Diercks is coming to the Scripps Research Auditorium on Wednesday, October 14, for a Front Row lecture. He'll be talking about accelerating evolution to create new therapeutic enzymes, so if you've ever wondered how scientists essentially speed up nature's own process to build medicines, this is exactly that.

For a bit of context, enzymes are the proteins that act as catalysts in almost every biological process in our bodies. They make things happen that otherwise wouldn't, and when they don't work right, that's often where disease comes in. Diercks' work is about taking that evolutionary process—the way proteins change and adapt over millions of years—and compressing it into a laboratory timeframe. The goal is to engineer enzymes that can do specific jobs, like targeting a particular protein in a disease, and doing it with a precision that nature might not have arrived at on its own.

It's a deep dive into the intersection of biology and engineering, and since it's a Front Row lecture, it's presented as a talk rather than a formal academic paper. You'll hear directly from Diercks, PhD, about how this process works and where it's leading in terms of new medicines.

The lecture runs from 4 PM to 6 PM at the Scripps Research Auditorium in San Diego, and it's free to attend.