Opening for Ph.D Studentship @ Imperial College London

 Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship in the Institute of Chemical Biology at Imperial College London, and collaborating groups at University College London and AstraZeneca UK.

•  Project Title: Towards chemical control of protein conformation for cancer therapy: using chemical biology to image how proteins change their shape in cells.
•  Supervisors: Dr Ed Tate (Department of Chemistry), Dr Matilda Katan (The Institute of Cancer Research), Professor Paul French and Dr Chris Dunsby (Department of Physics), in collaboration with Dr Andrew Thomas (AstraZeneca).
• Summary:
  
  •  Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and subsequent conformational changes play a prominent role in all cellular functions, particularly signalling pathways. An important example is the regulation of effector proteins by small GTPases from the Ras family; these PPI networks are often deregulated in diseases such as cancer, and members of these signalling pathways are prominent potential drug targets.
  • Fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy are powerful methods to monitor the protein dynamics that result in a transition from inactive to active signalling forms, however, their application is seriously limited by a lack of tools for multiplexed site-specific fluorescent labelling of proteins, particularly in living systems.