Research Interests

Our current research efforts focus on the following main areas:

• Emergence and evolution of metabolic excretions (funded by NSF/BBSRC) (in collaboration with Wenying Shou). We develop abstract models of cellular metabolism and aim to test these with experimental data. Our modelling work focuses on understanding the role of metabolite cycles on constraining overall cell metabolism. We complement this with measurement of NAD(P)H autofluorescence in real time in yeast and HeLA cells. The ultimate aim is to understand role of cycled metabolite pools in determining metabolic dynamics, and in particular overflow metabolism.
• Feedbacks between metabolism, community dynamics and spatial organisation in microbial communities (funded by Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation). We study a spatially organised microbial community, derived from Nature but cultured in the laboratory. We determine the metabolic interactions in this ~15-species system and aim to decipher the role of spatial organisation in the stability of those interactions and species co-existence. In this project, we make extensive use of temporal metagenomics (in collaboration with Christopher Quince), targeted metabolomics, and time-lapse microscopy.
• Membrane potential and cellular metabolism (in collaboration with Munehiro Asally). In both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, the redox processes and maintenance of cellular co-substrate pools is tightly interlinked with membrane potential and respiration. These observations raise the possibility that control of redox balances could provide a means to control cellular metabolism. We are currently exploring the use of redox mediators and electric fields (together with micro-fluidics) to study and influence relations between cellular metabolic fluxes, membrane potential, and cellular redox balance. This work focuses on mammalian cells (HeLa) and yeast (S. cerevisiae).
• Modelling of metabolic dynamics (in collaboration with Elisenda Feliu and Alex Fletcher). Composed of a myriad of interconnected reactions, and involving shared conserved moieties and regulatory mechanisms, metabolism is a complex dynamical system. We are interested in understanding the early emergence of such metabolic systems as well their possible dynamical determinants. Currently, we are developing mathematical models to try and understand how specific biochemical and biophysical mechanisms can emerge and determine the dynamics in small metabolic systems.