Enrico Di Cera, MD

Alice A. Doisy Professor and Chair

Saint Louis University (SLU)

We are interested in the structure and function of trypsin-like proteases, especially in the molecular determinants of substrate specificity and allosteric regulation. Our main focus is on thrombin, the key enzyme of blood coagulation and the prototypic allosteric protease. Our experimental approaches encompass enzyme kinetics (steady state and pre-steady state), thermodynamics (calorimetry), site-directed mutagenesis, protein engineering and X-ray structural biology.