Welcome

The lives and deaths of the cell that make up our bodies are determined by interactions between proteins within them. These interactions are determined by the three-dimensional structures of the proteins, and mutations to key regulatory proteins like p53 and members of the Bcl family are major factors in the development of cancers.

New Tools

Whilst small molecules can be developed to intervene in some cases, other protein-protein interactions are too subtle to easily target. In this case sections of one of the peptide partners are often used and modified to provide therapeutic tools. Our project aims to advance these tools by modifying peptides to enhance their stability and cell-penetrating characteristics and to enable their activity to be switched on or off by light whenever and wherever it is required.

New Applications

Whilst photo-switchable peptides are well characterised in vitro, we aim to create robust techniques to allow their routine use in vivo. While our first targets will be cell regulatory proteins, our techniques are generally applicable to protein-protein interactions.