Warwick Supervisor Pool
Molecular Cell Biology
Timothy Saunders (Medical School) l Using Drosophila and zebrafish development to unravel the processes driving the emergence of complex organ shape. See for example Zhang et al. Current Biology 2020 and Tlili et al. PNAS 2019.
Samuel Dean (Medical School) l Cell and parasite biology of protozoan pathogens, flagellar biology of pathogens and humans, development of genetic technology.
Michael Smutny (Medical School & Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology): Cell & Developmental Biology: Studying biophysical and biochemical mechanisms that form and pattern the zebrafish embryo using live cell imaging, biophysical tools, genetics and transcriptomics. see: Smutny M. et al. Nat Cell Biol. 2017
Darius V. Köster (Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology) | Understanding the role of mechano-sensing and membrane tension regulation in cell-cell adhesion by using a combination of reconstituted, minimal systems, live cell experiments and controlled, mechanical micro-manipulations. | see: Köster and Mayor (2016), Current Opinion in Cell Biology, doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2016.02.021.
Aparna Ratheesh (Medical School): Cell & Developmental Biology and Immunology. Mechanical and biochemical control of immune cell migration during embryogenesis using genetics, live-imaging, biophysical tools and modelling.I see : Ratheesh, A.et al. Developmental Cell. 2018 May 7;45(3).
Mohan Balasubramanian (Medical School) l Synthetic Cell Biology: Using biophysics and chemistry to understand molecular mechanisms of actomyosin ring dependent eukaryotic cell division l see: Huang et all, eLife, 2016.
Andrew Blanks (Medical School) l Reproduction in mammals, parturition and preterm birth, drug discovery, computational biology of bioelectrical systems l see: Jolene et al, PLOS Computational Biology, 2016.
Andrew Bowman (Medical School) l Research utilises novel synthetic biology approaches and fluorescence microscopy to observe chromatin assembly in living cells l see: Bowman et al, Nucleic Acids Res., 2016.
Mark Christian (Medical School) l Understanding the processes that control energy metabolism in brown adipocytes and have the potential to be targeted for weight loss treatments l see: Barneda et al, eLife, 2015.
Rob Cross (Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology) l Research focuses on the force generating mechanisms of kinesins and microtubules.
Robert Dallmann (Medical School) l Circadian clocks in health, disease and pharmacotherapy l see: DeBruyne JP et al, 2014.
Geraldine Hartshorne (Medical School) l Human oocyte formation, selection, maturation and ageing; pre-implantation embryo development l see: Patel et al, Biology Open, 2015.
Andrew McAinsh (Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology) l Origins of chromosome mis-segregation in human disease and development, live-cell imaging, in vitro reconstitution, genome editing, image analysis l see: Smith et al, eLife, 2016.
Masanori Mishima (Medical School) l Molecular mechanisms of animal cytokinesis l see: Lee et al, Nat. Comms 6:7290, 2015.
Steve Royle (Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology) l Mitotic spindle stability in human cells; molecules and mechanics of clathrin-mediated endocytosis l see: Nixon et al, eLife 4:e07635, 2015.
Karuna Sampath (Medical School) l Molecular mechanisms that control development and differentiation in embryonic progenitors using live-imaging, proteomics, genome editing, quantitative approaches and zebrafish developmental genetics l see: Yin et al, eLife 5:e13879, 2016.
Anne Straube (Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology) l Mechanisms of microtubule organisation and dynamics regulation; microtubule functions in cell differentiation and migration l see: Mogessie et al, eLife, 2015.
Molecular Microbiology
Yin Chen (Life Sciences) My research focuses on understanding bacterial membrane lipids diversity and lipid remodelling in bacterial pathogenesis and host-pathogen interactions using a synthesis of molecular genetics, biochemistry, structure biology and multilayer omics.
Nicole Robb (Medical School) l Studying how viruses replicate using microscopy and developing biophysical methods for viral imaging, detection and diagnosis. See Robb et al. Scientific Reports 2019 doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-52759-5
Mark Achtman (Medical School) l Reconstruction of the evolutionary history of bacterial pathogens by combining ancient DNA analyses with population genetics of extant organisms l see: Zhou et al, PNAS, 2014.
Chrystala Constantinidou (Medical School) l Microbial pathogenesis through the study of secretion systems, motility and genomics analysis l see: Loman et al, JAMA, 2013.
Meera Unnikrishnan (Medical School) l Understanding how clinically important bacterial pathogens colonise the host, invade and survive within host cells using a combination of whole genome-based and cellular methodologies l see: Dapa et al, J. Bacteriol., 2013.
Nick Waterfield (Medical School) l Understanding the molecular mechanisms employed by bacterial pathogens to achieve virulence in insect and human hosts, more specifically how certain insect pathogens have evolved to infect humans also. l see: Mulley et al, PLoS One, 2015.
Daniel Hebenstreit (Life Sciences) The Hebenstreit lab is interested in general mechanisms of transcription, gene regulation and single-cell variation, with a focus on RNA polymerase II dynamics in space and time, and phase-separation phenomena. Our lab uses an interdisciplinary approach including next generation sequencing, imaging, bioinformatics, and modelling.
Kevin Purdy (Life Sciences) My research focuses on understanding microbial community dynamics in natural and engineered systems in order to understand the principles that underpin microbial community structure and function. These principles can then be used to determine how and why microbial communities change and affect natural and engineered processes under continuing environmental pressures.
Munehiro Asally ( Life Sciences) I am interested in the biophysical mechanisms by which membrane potential (electrical potential across the membrane) and physical forces regulate bacterial cellular behaviors (eg spore formation, cell division, biofilm formation). Further to understanding the biophysical mechanisms, I am also interested in translating findings and understanding for applications. I have cofounded a spinout company, Cytecom Ltd, to commercialize a technology for rapid detection of proliferative bacteria. At this point, I am particularly interested in collaboration opportunities with A-STAR to apply electrical stimulation technology to various microbial cells or to simulate biophysical dynamics at molecular or cellular levels.
David Roper (Life Sciences) The research in my group is focused on understanding the molecular mechanism of bacterial cell wall biosynthesis and bacterial cell division and the proteins responsible, which are or may become next generation antibiotic targets. We use a range of In-vivo to In-vitro techniques spanning basic microbiology and phenotypic studies through molecular biology and mechanistic enzymology to single particle EM imaging and X-ray crystallography. We work with Phil Stansfeld (Life Sciences/Chemistry), Seamus Holden & Allister Crow (Life Sciences) Nick Waterfield (Medical School) as well as collaborators world-wide.
Phill Stansfeld (Life Sciences & Chemistry): We use computational methods to study membrane protein structures, in particular we apply molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to simulate the molecular motions of macromolecular complexes and study drug interactions. With the increasing threat of anti-microbial resistance, we are especially interested in bacterial membrane proteins, in particular those from pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.