Molecular and Cell Biology

Our research spans the disciplines of Protein Science and Cell Biology, subjects that are intimately linked by the common aim of understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie biological processes.

We are interested in understanding the molecular details of how proteins function.  Examples of the proteins understudy include several membrane proteins, such as photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes, reaction centres and G-protein coupled receptors, and water soluble proteins such as peroxiredoxin, pyruvate dehydrogenase and phototrophin.   Our research combines structural studies, using nuclear magnetic spectroscopy (NMR) and X-ray crystallography alongside a wide array of functional approaches.  Our work also involves a significant bioinformatics element that aims to identify new structural motifs.  Work in this area is underpinned by a wide range of state of the art biophysical equipment, including a 600MHz NMR spectrometer and cryoprobe, a fully equipped X-ray crystallography suite, molecular graphics facilities, CD and fluorescence spectroscopy, MALDI-ToF and electrospray mass spectrometry, and facilities for large-scale over-expression of proteins.

We adopt a multi-disciplinary approach in our cell biology research which covers topics such as protein folding in the secretory pathway, regulation of membrane traffic, control of cell cycle, cytokinesis and compartmentalization of cellular signaling.  Our research has implications for the understanding of disease states such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, and also has implications for improving food security and biotechnological applications.

Examples of some recently solved structures