Adarshi Welegedara

Dr. Adarshi Welegedara is a Research Fellow at the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University. His work focuses on protein engineering, structural biology, and chemical biology, with a specialization in genetic encoding of unnatural amino acids, selenocysteine chemistry, and lanthanide-based spectroscopic methods.

• Research Themes
  • Development of genetically encoded fluorescent amino acids (e.g., 4-cyanotryptophan) to study protein structure and ligand binding
  • Innovations in lanthanide tags for pseudocontact shift analysis and distance measurements in proteins (Gd³⁺–Gd³⁺ DEER)
  • Expanding the genetic code with hydrophobic/electronegative residues (para-pentafluorosulfanyl phenylalanine) to enhance protein stability
  • Photocaged selenocysteine for controlled protein function studies

Publication Trends: Recent work (2025–2020) highlights advancements in unnatural amino acid incorporation, protein tagging technologies, and applications of NMR/EPR spectroscopy.

Collaborations: Active collaborations with researchers including Gottfried Otting, Thomas Huber, and Elizabeth Adams.