A-to-G

Neuronal circuits are the biological substrates for all aspects of brain function such as learning, memory, thought, speech or consciousness. The synapses, connecting points between neurons, are continuously remodelled in response to novel experiences and hold the key to understanding how these circuits work. More…

The molecules of life, such as proteins, nucleic acids and metabolites, have traditionally been studied in isolation. It is becoming increasingly clear that they are tied together to form a large, inter-linked, complex system that is highly regulated at multiple levels of organization. More…

The anaphase-promoting complex (APC/C) is a large multi-subunit complex (~1.2 MDa) that functions to regulate cell cycle transitions, specifically the metaphase to anaphase transition in mitosis (when duplicated sister chromatid pairs are separated), the exit from mitosis and maintenance of G1. More…

My lab is interested in the generation of biological form or “morphogenesis”. While we have long studied morphogenesis in the context of developing tissues, our main focus has always been on events at the cellular scale. More…

Deposition of proteins of aberrant conformation is the hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and prion disorders. Cells have elaborate quality control mechanisms to protect them from the deleterious effect of misfolded proteins. More…

The Wnt signalling pathway controls animal development and tissue homeostasis, and is also a major cancer pathway. Its key effector is β-catenin, which is stabilized in response to Wnt stimulation; it thus binds to TCF factors in the nucleus, and functions as a co-activator to mediate Wnt-induced transcription. Inappropriate activation of β-catenin can cause cancer in many human tissues, most notably colorectal cancer. More…

We study the structure and the molecular assembly mechanisms of important, pathogenic, enveloped viruses (e.g. HIV and Influenza virus), and of cellular trafficking vesicles (e.g. clathrin and COPI coated vesicles). More…

Molecular motors have critical roles in trafficking of organelles and macromolecules within the cytoplasm, and aberrant motor function has been implicated in diseases such as neurodegeneration. More…

The brain works as an integrated whole. Animals interact with the world by combining inputs from their senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch and multiple others, with memories of past experiences, to then select a single, appropriate motor response that we observe as behavior. More…

The contents of eukaryotic cells are organised and moved around by motor proteins running along the tracks that make up the cytoskeleton (microtubules and actin filaments). The largest and most complicated of these is the microtubule motor cytoplasmic dynein. More…

Biomolecules and their dynamic assemblies, in collaboration with the energy provided by NTP hydrolysis, perform a spectacular range of mechanical and chemical manipulations on nanometre scale objects in the cell; molecular motors perform mechanical work, while enzymes rearrange atoms in ways, and at rates that synthetic chemists have difficulty emulating. More…

The repair of damaged DNA is essential in all cells to ensure that the fidelity of the genome is maintained and to prevent mutations arising. This is of particular importance in stem cells, as mutations will not only effect that individual cell but the many millions of progeny derived from it. More…

Our goal is to establish the molecular mechanisms that generate cytoskeletal asymmetries during asymmetric cell division and to determine how, in turn, these cytoskeletal asymmetries generate polarized trafficking/signaling during development. More…

Ordered assembly of a small number of proteins within neurons and, in some cases, glia is a feature of neurodegenerative diseases. These proteins form amyloid structures enriched in repetitively stacked beta-strands. More…

Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are characterized by the presence of abnormal filamentous assemblies within some nerve cells. Similar assemblies are found in several related disorders. The events leading to filament formation or the mere presence of filaments are believed to produce nerve cell degeneration. More…

Medical research, and the molecular biology that it relies on, can be advanced in many ways using theoretical and computational approaches, mostly by harnessing the power of small and big data generated by experimental methods. More…

Information transfer in the nervous system occurs at synapses where presynaptic signals are interpreted by postsynaptic receptors. We study this process with a focus on AMPA-type glutamate receptors, at various levels of complexity. More…