Postgraduate research project

Structural biology: A gas channel in vitamin B6 biosynthetic enzymes

Funding
Fully funded (UK and international)
Type of degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Entry requirements
MSc degree View full entry requirements
Faculty graduate school
Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences
Closing date

About the project

Study of gas channels in proteins. You will study gas channeling and structural dynamics in bacterial (tuberculosis), malarial, and plant enzymes involved in Vitamin B6 biosynthesis. Methods learned and applied will be high pressure and time resolved crystallography. 

You will join the Structural Biology Groups at the University of Southampton and at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble (ESRF France). 

The High-Pressure Macromolecular Crystallography laboratory at the ESRF will allow you to map gas channels in proteins and study gas transport. 

Specifically, you will:

  • investigate ammonia substrate transport through an internal protein channel in the vitamin B6 biosynthetic enzyme Pdx1 from plants, bacteria or from the malaria causing pathogen Plasmodium
  • combine crystallography at cryogenic temperatures with time resolved studies at room temperature, using serial crystallography and spectroscopic techniques

Supervisors:

You will also be supervised by Dr Christoph Mueller Dieckmann and Dr Philippe Carpentier from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble.