Professor Lee Min-jae's research project aims to develop a method to selectively remove specific proteins through the artificial evolution of the proteasome to degrade pathogenic proteins specifically and to prove its applicability as a new treatment method against proteopathy diseases.

A universal methodology that induces selective degradation of endogenous proteins is developed based on the artificial evolution of the proteasome may maximize selectivity and effectiveness by eliminating the need for substrate modification, ubiquitination, and intermediate mediators. Furthermore, through modification and inducible expression of the proteasome, the degradation rate of the target protein can be finely controlled at the cell or organism level. It can be widely used as a general basic research methodology to complement or replace siRNA.

Most other studies focus on gene editing, siRNA, for suppression of production. In contrast, Professor Lee Min-jae's research project is to provide a solution that resolves abnormally accumulated various proteins downstream, which is safer and more effective than gene conversion.