Research Interests

The Stansfeld group studies one of the fundamental challenges in biological sciences: to visualise biomolecular machines in high-resolution detail. This is notoriously difficult, expensive and time-consuming to achieve by using experimental techniques, especially for proteins that exist in cell membranes, known as Integral membrane proteins. These proteins play fundamental roles in cell biology e.g. as processing enzymes, ion channels, drug receptors, and solute transporters.

With the increasing threat of antimicrobial resistance, we are especially interested in bacterial membrane proteins. Knowledge of the three-dimensional structures of proteins involved in essential processes provides the physical details of potentially viable targets for killing drug-resistant, pathogenic bacteria. By animating these structures in computers, we may assess the association of proteins with lipids, drug molecules and other essential components of the protein complexes.

Scientific Inspiration

The structure of KcsA in 1998, and then the higher resolution structure in 2001, is essentially why I am now an academic. The beauty, and simplicity, of a ion channel at an atomic level inspired me to learn more about nature’s essential processes at a macromolecular level.