Participant no. 4: Tom Blundell, Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK
Institution
The Department of Biochemistry is a multidisciplinary research and teaching centre of excellence. It has over 40 research teams, research ranges from chemical and structural biology, through cell and molecular biology, to functional genomics and stem cell biology of animals, plants and microbes. There is a considerable focus on the mechanisms of disease and drug discovery. The Department is equipped for protein and DNA sequencing, X-ray, NMR, SPR, bioinformatics, arrays, proteomics and metabolomics.
Tom Blundell's group will be involved in:
- Crystal structure of HGF/SF-MET complexes
- Protein engineering of MET antagonists
- Low molecular weight MET antagonists
Profile of the Group
Tom Blundell has pioneered for over 35 years methods of structure-based design, including high throughput and fragment-based approaches to drug discovery and in 1999 co-founded Astex Therapeutics in Cambridge. Tom Blundell's group will provide critical mass for the application of fragment based methods to the HGF/SF-MET receptor system and will also be involved in X-ray crystallographic studies of HGF/SF and mutant forms of NK1 in complex with MET.
Tom Blundell is Sir William Dunn Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge and Chairman of the Council of Biological Sciences in Cambridge. He is a structural biologist, his interests are in the architecture of macromolecules and their assemblies and the relation to function and diseases including cancer. He has used X-ray crystallography to define structures of multiprotein complexes involved in DNA repair, polypeptide hormone receptor complexes, and cellular signalling systems that transduce the intracellular responses.
Dimitri Chirgadze is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Associate with training in Physics and a PhD in crystallography, he solved several structures of NK1 and will bring his experience in structural biology to further analysis of HGF/SF and MET to this project.
Michal Blaszczyk is a post-doctoral fellow with training in Chemistry and a PhD in crystallography who has recently joined the SFMET project.