leading a talented team in the development of new recombinant virology tools and molecular diagnostics

Development of new recombinant virology tools to study emerging viruses and zoonotic viruses

protein expression and biophysics

Study of the structure and function of retroviral restriction factors. Specifically using baculovirus expression to express specific restriction factors as both full length proteins and as individual domains to determine and investigate the 3D structure.

At present my research involves using a baculovirus expression system to produce proteins that are used as antigens in antigenicity studies. Currently I am working to try and understand of the antigencity of the HIV envelope glycoprotein and the position/importance of disulphide bonding in the molecule

PhD studentship studying the effects of virus infection on host cells. This involves setting proteomics experiments and analysing proteomic data, Molecular biology techniques from RNA extraction, cDNA synthesis and PCR to construction of expression vectors and sequencing analysis, and protein purification techniques such as affinity purifications.

Analytical method development of biopharmaceuticals and transition to GMP environments.

Bioactive molecule discovery from marine sources, especially novel marine toxins. Both small molecules and peptides/proteins. Responsible for initial isolation and fractionation, in-vitro screening and maintenance of compound library. Use of traditional natural products, protien biochemistry and molecular biology techniques, including RP-HPLC (analytical and semi-prep), LC-MS, SPE, ion exchange, gel filtration, protein precipitation, SDS-PAGE, RNA isolation, cDNA production, cloning, microbiological and mammalian cell culture.