I joined Prof Richard Callaghan's research group in the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences at the University of Oxford, to study the modulating effect of a novel PIM-1 kinase inhibitor on the multidrug efflux transporter ABCG2. It was known that PIM1-kinase phosphorylated ABCG2 on a threonine residue at position 362 and this is believed to be imported for its functional formation at the cell surface. Through various studies we demonstrated an inhibiting activity of ABCG2 with a designed PIM-1 kinase inhibitor. My studies involved cell culture of MCF-7 derived cell lines, cytotoxicity assays, insect cell culture protein production and purification, Western blotting & radio-immunological assays.

I was initially employed by Professor Anna Hine to generate a new methodology for the purification of plasmid DNA. Through genetic engineering I successfully generated a fluorescently labelled bacterial LacI protein and immobilised it to a solid support which was then successfully used to purify bacterial plasmids with engineered lacO sequences from crude bacterial lysates. Extensive DNA and protein work was carried out including PCR, nucleic acid purification, protein purification, Western blotting and lyophilisation. We applied for a patent to cover the nature of this work.Upon completion of this project I was then employed by Professor Roslyn Bill as part of the eMeP Project focussing on the genetic engineering of yeast species to be better suited for the expressing of human genes to produce human membrane proteins. My work involved extensive PCR applications, use of Saccharomyces cerevisiae & Pichia pastoris yeasts, medium scale bioreactor cultivations, Western blotting & ribosome analysis techniques. We applied for a patent to cover this work.