James Andon, an IPiB graduate student, will be defending his Ph.D. research on May 4, 2026. His research in the Wang Lab focused on directed evolution, causing phages (viruses that infect bacteria) to evolve an exogenous gene for new technological applications using a process called phage-assisted continuous evolution.
Specifically, Andon was interested in directing phages to produce non-canonical amino acids (amino acids that can be incorporated into proteins but differ from the 20 standard amino acids). Non-canonical amino acids can introduce new-to-nature chemistries into proteins but can be expensive to produce.
“My aim with this is to enable a technology called genetic code expansion,” says Andon. Genetic code expansion involves incorporating new chemical motifs into gene sequences to code for proteins with a desired change in function. “One of the bottlenecks towards using genetic code expansion technology is the availability of non-canonical amino acids. They can be difficult to produce using synthetic chemistry and we don’t often see them natively, we need new ways to produce them.”
Andon deleted a gene necessary for survival from the phage genome and inserted a different gene that would make it possible for the phage to produce a non-canonical amino acid. He then engineered E. coli cells to produce the gene deleted from the phage genome only in the presence of the non-canonical amino acid. Phages able to evolve to produce adequate amounts of the amino acid would survive, increasing their overall fitness.
Andon joined IPiB with an interest in continuous evolution. Along the way, he also worked on related projects to broaden his understanding and to bide time when experiments were not moving forward as planned. “We learned some hard lessons along the way,” reflects Andon. “I tried a lot of evolutions that didn’t really pan out and around my third year I thought it might not work out. So, I pivoted to other projects for a while that used similar concepts and eventually found my way back to my original project.”
Among the other projects Andon pursued was identifying if non-canonical amino acids could help create cyclic peptides to inhibit the aggregation of amyloid beta, a peptide implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Another research project, on population-level sequential evolution using phage-assisted evolution, was published in PNAS.
Andon sees the varied projects he has worked on as a strength of his graduate training. “It has challenged me to work on different things,” says Andon. “I’ve done more traditional research on phage-assisted continuous evolution, I’ve studied noncanonical amino acid biosynthesis and utilization, and I’ve looked at the details of how and when a population evolves. It’s been exciting to get an opportunity to just ask some questions about how evolution works and use the system we’ve developed in different ways.”
When he’s not in the lab, Andon enjoys playing golf with friends and colleagues and fishing in the Wisconsin River. After graduating, Andon plans to pursue a career in industry.
To learn more about Andon’s research, attend his Ph.D. defense, “Exploring genetic code expansion and the genetic basis of adaptation using phage-assisted evolution” on Monday, May 4 at 2:00 p.m. CT in room 175 of Hector F. DeLuca Biochemistry Laboratories Building.
Written by Renata Solan.