Staff Profile

I am a driven researcher with an interest in using structural and biochemical techniques to answer fundamental questions of protein function, with a special focus on rare metabolic disorders. I earned my BSc in biochemistry at Queen's University Belfast 2008, after where I was awarded a PhD in 2012 based on my work on the biochemical basis of galactosemia with Prof. David Timson. After completing my PhD, I accepted a postdoctoral position in Prof Wyatt Yue's lab at the University of Oxford. During that time, I developed skills in x-ray crystallography of metabolic proteins involved in rare diseases such as carbohydrate and amino acid disorders. In 2016 I accepted a postdoctoral position in Prof Xiaodong Zhang's lab at Imperial College London where I further developed my structural biology skills using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) towards the aim of solving structures of large protein complexes involved in DNA repair. In 2019 I returned to the lab of Prof Wyatt Yue where I use my experience to determine cryo-EM structures of enzyme complexes involved in glycogen and amino acid metabolism. I am now developing my own interests in revealing the hidden world of shape shifting enzymes using cryo-EM. Many metabolic enzymes involved in cancer & rare disease are regulated by changing their shape in response to stimuli such as PTMs & metabolites. These transformations can result in a drastic change in conformation, alter activity, & alter interactions with other proteins. I aim to use cryo-EM coupled with biophysical techniques to reveal how these enzymes change their shape. Coupled with drug screening techniques such as fragment-based x-ray crystallography I will use this information with collaborators in the design of novel therapies for disease.