Award details

Protein analytical suite for protein structure function engineering and rational drug design

Reference	BB/C510859/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Xiaodong Zhang
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Geoffrey Baldwin, Dr Katherine Brown, Professor Martin Buck, Professor Bernadette Byrne, Professor Anthony Cass, Professor Stephen Curry, Professor Kurt Drickamer, Professor Paul Freemont, Professor Gianfranco Gilardi, Professor Erhard Hohenester, Professor So Iwata, Dr Robert Weinzierl
Institution	Imperial College London
Department	Biological Sciences
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	191,515
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/01/2005
End date	31/12/2005
Duration	12 months

Abstract

This application aims to provide a modern protein analytical facility at the South Kensington Campus to complement ongoing physical and biochemical studies of protein structure and function. Research at the South Kensington campus focuses on four main areas: biomolecular structure, function and bioinformatics; plant and microbial science; molecular cell biology; and infection and immunity. The Centre for Structural Biology (CSB) within the department is a college centre with affiliated groups from three faculties which aims to provide both expertise and core facilities in all areas of structural biology research including protein crystallography, NMR, electron microscopy and mass spectrometry. Currently we boast state-of-the-art facilities in all the structure determination techniques. The study of protein structure and function therefore forms a major research area at Imperial College with leading international groups in the areas of membrane protein structural biology, protein enzymology, nanotechnology, and protein engineering. Given our increasing understanding of molecular and cellular biology, there is now a need for more quantitative analyses of protein systems that can be used to elucidate biochemical mechanisms or develop new protein based reagents in bioengineering and nanotechnology. In this proposal, we request instruments that will enable the characterisation of protein-protein interactions, protein folding/stabilities, protein dynamics, and enzyme kinetics. These include an isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), a differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), a circular dichroism (CD) spectrometer, and a stopped-flow spectrophotometer/fluorimeter with polarisation. We believe all of the requested instruments are complementary and offer good value for money, as they will provide much of the information required for physically characterising individual proteins and enzymes as well as multi-protein complexes. Surprisingly, there are few modern analytical instruments within the department accessible to general users. There are over 18 research groups incorporating over 100 users (with many of them funded by BBSRC) whose research requires quantitative protein characterisation. The requested protein analytical equipment will thus serve a very large number of active research groups. To manage this, we proposed to place the instruments within the CSB under the supervision of a dedicated technician. We believe that the proposed protein analytical suite will complement the existing protein structure/function infrastructure within the department and provide the much needed analytical tools for many research groups.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Biomolecular Sciences (BMS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	Research Equipment Initiative 2004 (RE4) [2004]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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