Phill Stansfeld, University of Warwick, UK, will give a talk about "Molecular Modelling the Biogenesis of the Bacterial Cell Envelope"

Membrane proteins are bound and regulated by phospholipids and sterols from the surrounding bilayer and therefore determining how the nature of these interactions is vital for a full understanding of biological function. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, especially using coarse-grained (CG) methods, are routinely used to identify these binding sites. We are increasingly interested in determining not only if and where a particular lipid binds to a protein of interest, but also what the affinity of this interaction is and whether there is selectivity to the lipid binding. In other words, how likely is a specific protein-lipid interaction, given the complex environment of a biological membrane? I will discuss our methods to measure binding kinetics to identify and rank 700 cardiolipin binding sites on 42 Escherichia coli membrane proteins. This comprehensive approach enables identification of conserved motifs for high affinity cardiolipin-protein interactions. I will also discuss our studies into modelling mycobacterial membranes and approaches to determine how a bacterial cell establishes both its peptidoglycan cell wall and outer membrane.

Phill Stansfeld is an Associate Professor (Reader) of Computational Biochemistry in the School of Life Sciences and Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick since 2019.
He received his First Class Bsc (with Hons) degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2003; studying glutamate receptors for his undergraduate research project, in the lab of Professor David Wyllie. Phill continued his interest in ion channels for his PhD, at the University of Leicester, researching the hERG potassium channel and its relatives. His studentship was funded by the BBSRC and Novartis Pharmaceuticals. He completed his PhD in Biochemistry in 2007.
Phill then joined the Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biochemistry Unit at the University of Oxford, where he worked with Professor Mark Sansom as a Wellcome-funded Post Doctoral Research Associate. At Oxford he initially continued his interests in ion channels, before branching out to consider a wide range of membrane protein structures. In 2011, Phill was awarded a BBSRC Researcher Co-Investigator award to establish a database for all membrane protein structures, called MemProtMD. In 2015, he became an independent Research Fellow within the Department of Biochemistry. While at Oxford, Phill held a Research Fellowship at Wolfson College between 2009 and 2016, and was a Stipendiary Lecturer at St Catherine’s College between 2012 and 2019; twice covering sabbaticals by the Biochemistry Tutor, Professor Penny Handford. For further information see: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/people/pstansfeld/

Host: Birgit Strodel

Guests are welcome!

Thursday, July 7th, 2022
4:30 p.m..
HS 6K