Chris Bystroff

Chris is a Professor in the Biological Sciences department at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute. In his words:

My lab studies the folding of proteins via structural bioinformatics, molecular simulations, and protein design. We are focused on the folding of green fluorescent protein and its application as a computationally programmable peptide biosensor. We use Hidden Markov models, kinetic simulations, data mining, machine learning, whole gene assembly and other molecular biology techniques, and Xray crystallography.

Of interest to sustainability and our conversations:

Computational modeling using system dynamic can predict the outcome of a well-described dynamic system, such as human population on Earth. To date, population models have been demographic models, considering only birth rates, death rates and migration. But the future of the human population depends on how much we affect the environment. Climate change and other anthropogenic changes to the Earth’s ecosphere will affect the carrying capacity for humanity. Where will it lead? World4 is a system dynamics model for human population.

Also:

We are also engaged in a collaborative effort to develop a contraceptive vaccine. The vaccine will produce temporary and reversible infertility. Instead of having to take an action to be protected, you will be protected by default, and would need to take an action to be temporarilly fertile again. The vaccine targets the sperm-specific calcium channel CatSper, which is required for sperm hyperactive motility and therefore for fertility. Sperm antigens are placed on the surface of non-infectious virus-like particles (VLP) for vaccination.

A contraceptive vaccine is a humane way to deal with global overpopulation. Overpopulation is widely believed to be the root cause of anthropogenic climate change, overfishing, fresh water depletion, war, famine etc. — in short, overpopulation is an existential threat. I recently published a computational model, called World4, for global population, predicting that a peak is coming soon. The good news is that by making every child a wanted child, population growth can be stopped humanely.

My lab is using chimeric constructs of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) L1 protein as a self-assmbling virus-like nanoparticle. Theses particle raise strong immunity to epitopes on their surface. We are placing CatSper loops on the surface for a contracpetive vaccine, SARS-CoV2 spike protein loops on the surface as a glycan-free COVID vaccine, and metastatic cancer biomarkers for a late-stage cancer immunotherapeutic. This versatile chimeric-HPV technology has many applications in epitope-directed vaccine design.