Demystifying biomolecular complexity

Here we answer the core question: why is something working, and why is it having a beneficial impact? We use our state-of-the-art equipment to understand why biomolecular structures behave the way they do. From our analysis of blood-clotting disorders to looking at the intricacies of high-value spider web silk production, our leading-edge insight into biomolecular complexity provides important learnings.  

The understanding of biological processes at a molecular level and the design, generation and evaluation of compounds that probe and report on these processes or interfere with their occurrence requires a multidisciplinary approach involving biochemistry, chemistry, pharmacology, molecular and structural biology.

Our research into structural biology aims to understand biological processes and applied research in the areas of target identification. We do this by determining protein structures and studying the structure/function of complexes formed with drugs and natural ligands using protein crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy and associated techniques.

We research into the genetics, pharmacogenetics, and molecular pathophysiology basis of respiratory diseases, in particular asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), that often lead to tissue remodelling resulting in fibrosis.  With respect to our gastrointestinal focussed research, our focus is on the human bacterial pathogen Helicobacter pylori. We aim to understand how bacterial virulence factors interact with host cells to provoke a more severe inflammatory response.

Researchers within the Division of Biomolecular Science and Medicinal Chemistry within the Structural Biology Group, School of Pharmacy undertake pioneering research, using macromolecular X-ray crystallography, in understanding the molecular basis of disease with a particular interest in structural studies of platelet receptors and blood coagulation factors. Within the Division of Respiratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, our research focuses on the genetics, pharmacogenetics, molecular pathophysiology in obstructive lung diseases (Asthma/COPD), fibrotic lung diseases (IPF, LAM), and infective lung diseases (cystic fibrosis, pneumonia). Our translational research includes the identification of biomarkers of disease and imaging. Also within Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, the Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre Biomedical Research Unit (BRU) is based within the Queen’s Medical Centre with the aim of taking the most promising basic biomedical research breakthroughs and translating them into patient benefit with a focus on infection and inflammation within the gut.

Research project highlights

The Nottingham Molecular Pathology Node (NMPN) is one of 6 nodes funded by the MRC and EPSRC to develop molecular pathology tests which will help deliver better targeted, more effective treatments - known as 'stratified medicine' - across a wide range of disease areas.

The Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) focusses on identifying and taking rapid advantage of new developments in the basic sciences and translating these into clinical practice. We do this by driving innovation in experimental science and translate research into breakthrough treatments, new technologies and advanced medicines. 

Our researchers

Search the table below to find out more about our researchers. You are able to filter the table by searching for names, keywords, and techniques.

 

Full list of our researchers

Name	Research keywords	Research techniques
Kenton Arkill	Vascular permeability, endothelial glycocalyx, electron microscopy, correlative microscopy techniques	Functional permeability assays, 3D TEM, correlative microscopy techniques
Jennifer Ashworth	Biomaterials, fibrosis, cancer research, 3D in vitro models, imaging tissue	3D cell culture, biomaterials design and fabrication, primary cell/ organoid culture, confocal imaging, micro-CT analysis
Steve Atkinson	Yersinia pestis, plague, black death, molecular genetic pathways, antibiotic resistance	Plague insect infection, soil infection, molecular genetics of plague
Dave Bates	Angiogenesis, vascular remodelling, cholangiocarcinoma, renal glomerular physiology, diabetes	In vivo imaging, RNA splicing, molecular and cellular biology, drug discovery
Andrew Benest	Endothelial cells, lymphatics, angiogenesis, vasculature, transcription factors	Transcriptomic, in vivo modelling, confocal imaging
Tracey D Bradshaw	Cancer, pharmacology, drug discovery, apoferritin, molecular mechanisms	Tissue culture, cell biology, MTT, western blot, flow cytometry
Lee Buttery	3D cell models, stem cells, osteoblasts, cell-materials interactions, tissue engineering	3D and ES cell culture, osteoblast culture, immunocytochemistry, optical tweezers for cell biology
Miguel Camara	Biofilms, quorum sensing, antimicrobials, microbial gene regulation, antimicrobial target discovery	Biofilm model design, biofilm imaging, bacterial transcriptomics, bioreporter design, HTP antimicrobial testing
Weng Chan	Antibiotic discovery, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, anti-virulence, peptide chemistry	Solid-phase peptide synthesis, organic synthesis, in vitro microbial assay, drug design
Rachel Clifford	Respiratory, Epigenetics, Transcriptional regulation, DNA methylation, inhaled exposures	Primary cell culture, methylomics, histone modification analysis, transcriptomics, molecular biology
Lodewijk V. Dekker	Drug discovery, cancer, thrombosis, protein kinase, protein interactions	Biochemical assays, cellular assays, enzyme assays, assay development, high throughput screening
Chris Denning	Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), heart/ cardiovascular disease, drug discovery and evaluation, regenerative medicine	Cardiovascular lineage differentiation, CRISPR engineering, phenotype-genotype correlations, automation
Ingrid Dreveny	Proteases in the ubiquitin system, protein structure, structure-aided drug design, enzyme specificity, proteins in biotechnology	Macromolecular X-ray crystallography, isothermal titration calorimetry, biochemistry, protein engineering
Lindy Durrant	Cancer immunotherapy, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, T cells, post-translational modifications	Production of antibodies, vaccine design, cancer animal models, T cell assays, ELISA
Isioma U. Egbuniwe	Bile duct cancer, tumour microenvironment, T and B cells, lymphatics, digital pathology	Primary cell isolation and culture, multi-parameter flow cytometry, 3D tumour-immune cell co-culture systems, histopathology, image analysis
Jonas Emsley	Structural biology, protein crystallography, protease structure, receptor structure, drug development	Protein crystallography, isothermal titration calorimetry, surface plasmon resonance, molecular docking
Mattea Finelli	Neurodegenerative diseases, redox mechanisms, oxidative and nitrosative stresses, proteomics, post-translational modifications of proteins	Quantitative/ redox/ PTMs proteomics, cell- and recombinant protein-based assays, stem cell derived disease models, various cell cultures (cortical, cerebellar, hippocampal, DRG, motor neurons)
Hester Franks	Cancer, immunotherapy, macrophages, tumour microenvironment, melanoma	Primary immune cell isolation and culture, flow cytometry, RNAScope
Kevin Gaston	Cancer, gene regulation, transcription, cell biology, protein-DNA interactions	RNA sequencing, ChIP sequencing, cell migration assays, cell viability assays, EMSA
Amanda Goodwin	Fibrosis, development, lung repair	In vitro cell stretch (Flexcell), G protein knockdown studies, TMLC assays (TGFbeta signalling assay), ECM crossover studies
Anna Grabowska	Cancer models, tumour microenvironment, target validation, drug screening, drug delivery	Cancer modelling, 3D tissue culture, quantitative PCR, immunohistochemistry
Andrew Green	Breast cancer, molecular pathology, glutamine metabolism, genotype, phenotype	Immunohistochemistry, tissue microarrays (TMAs), laser microdissection, gene expression profiling, in situ hybridisation
Nicholas Hannan	Stem cells, disease modelling, respiratory disease, liver disease, inflammatory bowel disease	Stem cell differentiation, cell phenotyping, gene editing, CRISPR base editing, organoids
Stephan Heeb	Bacterial infections, virulence, quorum sensing, gene expression, antimicrobial strategies	Bacterial genomics, RNA-Seq, RNA-protein interactions, construction of bacterial vectors
Andrew Jackson	Cancer, immunotherapy, dendritic Cells (DC), T-cells, signalling	Isolation of rare primary leukocyte subsets, flow cytometry, small molecule kinase inhibitors, multi-cellular immune culture systems
Sheela Jayaraman	Gene expression, chromatin, PRH/ HHEX, cell signalling, transcriptomics	RNAseq, western blotting, subcloning, chromatin immunoprecipitation
Jennie Jeyapalan	Epigenomics, prostate cancer, transcriptional regulation, splicing	Genomics, RNA seq analysis, molecular biology, cell culture
Barrie Kellam	Medicinal chemistry, fluorescent ligands, G protein-coupled receptors, drug discovery	Medicinal chemistry, molecular modelling, biospectroscopy, HPLC, fluorescence Imaging
Laura Kilpatrick	Molecular pharmacology, G protein coupled receptors, receptor tyrosine kinases, signalling complexes, protein-protein interactions	Bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET), fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, fluorescence imaging, pharmacological assays
Charlie Laughton	Biomolecular structure,   molecular recognition, drug design, formulation design,   molecular dynamics	Molecular dynamics simulations, protein structure prediction, virtual screening, machine learning, software development
Srinvasan Madhusudan	Medical oncology, clinical trials, breast cancer, DNA repair therapeutics, drug discovery	DNA repair assays, immunohistochemical techniques, clinical trial methodologies
Anna Malecka	Cancer, immunology, macrophages, comparative oncology, immune-stromal interactions	Flow cytometry, stroma-Immune co-culture system, cell culture
Stewart Martin	Breast, brain and ovarian cancer, radiotherapy, metastasis, novel drugs, redox homeostasis, calpain proteases	Radiation biology, immunohistochemistry, cell and molecular biology
Alan McIntyre	Cancer, hypoxia (low oxygen), acidosis, transcription, epigenetics, angiogenesis	CRISPR CAS9, RNA-SEQ, ChIP, tumour cell phenotype assays, hypoxia and acidosis investigations
Cathy Merry	Matrix biology, cancer research, disease modelling, glycobiology	Glycobiology, hydrogel development, stem cell culture and differentiation, matrix biology, in vitro disease models
Shailesh N. Mistry	Drug discovery, chemical biology, medicinal chemistry, G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), allosteric modulators	Medicinal chemistry, compound purification, spectroscopic analysis, ligand/ structure-based drug discovery
Abhik Mukarjee	Digital/ molecular pathology, gastrointestinal and pancreaticobiliary cancers, translational therapeutics, inflammatory bowel disease	Histopathology and immunohistochemistry, digital pathology and image analyses, molecular pathology, functional biology
Ellis O'Neil	Natural products, algal biotechnology, biotransformation	Analytical chemistry, mass spectrometry, protein expression and purification, genome mining
Emad Rakha	Breast cancer, pathology, classification, prognosis, digital pathology, AI, predictive and prognostic markers	Digital pathology, immunohistochemistry, image analysis
Timothy Ritzmann	Childhood brain tumours, brain tumour immunity, childhood cancer, ependymoma, cancer recurrence	RNA-sequencing, multiplex immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, clinical data analysis, childhood brain tumour clinical trials
Ian Sayers	Molecular, genetic and cellular mechanisms underlying asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, virus-host interactions, stratified medicine	Gene discovery, primary airway cell and tissue models, functional genetics, transcriptomics, patient translational studies
Claire Seedhouse	Blood cancers, drug resistance, stem cells, dormancy, functional consequences of mutations	Quantitative PCR, flow cytometry, primary suspension cultures
Philippe Soucaille	Metabolic engineering, systems biology, synthetic biology, microbial physiology – CO2 fixation	Enzyme evolution, bacterial genome editing, fluxomics, proteomics, transcriptomics
Panos Soultanas	DNA replication, DNA repair, replication-metabolism regulation, genome stability	Protein expression, purification, polymerase and helicase assays, analytical ultracentrifugation, SPR
Ian Spendlove	Controlling iTreg, engineering T cells, cloning TCRs from cancer patients, cancer survivors, anti cancer antibodies.	TCR cloning/ transduction, CRISPR-Cas9 of primary leukocytes, flow sorting rare T cells, differentiating iTreg, autophagosome purification.
Michael Stocks	Medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, cancer, antimicrobial resistance, prodrugs	Synthesis, drug optimisation, drug delivery, medicinal chemistry
Sarah Storr	Cancer, breast cancer, DARPP-32, calpain, cell signalling	Cell culture, bioinformatics, immunohistochemistry, molecular biology, protein purification
Huw Williams	NMR, molecular interactions, molecular structure, analytical, kinetics	NMR, molecular interactions, solid state NMR, molecular dynamics, molecular structure
Paul Williams	Quorum sensing, biofilms, bacteria, biomaterials, antimicrobial agents	Bacterial genetics, bacterial culture, antimicrobial assays, quorum sensing assays, microscopy/ imaging
Mischa Zelzer	Biointerfaces; biomaterials; peptide materials; hydrogels; computational material science	Surface modification and analysis; polymerisation kinetics; light and enzyme responsive materials; material characterisation

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