Research groups

Research

Molecular Modelling in Biochemistry.

Molecular modelling is a very useful tool in the design and interpretation of experiments. This is well recognised in Bristol, where most research groups have used this technique, to a greater or lesser extent.

Molecular modelling can also be thought of as a subset of Bioinformatics and, as we pass into the "post-genomic sequence era", this field will play an ever more important role in scientific research.

Computer hardware advances continue to follow Moore’s law, formulated in the 1960’s, which states that machine speed’s roughly double every 18 months. This is allowing the application of evermore sophisticated modelling techniques to routine problems. The following molecular modelling techniques and projects are actively pursued in the School of Biochemistry:

• homology modelling
• ligand/drug design
• mutant design
• molecular mechanics/dynamics
• semi-empirical molecular orbital calculations
• protein structure prediction.

Group

Jon Rea.

Recent publications

Thomas, G.L., Sessions, R.B., and Parker, M.J. (2005) Density Guided Importance Sampling: application to a reduced model of protein folding. Bioinformatics, in press.

Forsyth, J.L., Beaudoin, F., Halford, N.G., Sessions, R.B., Clarke, A.R., Shewry, P.R. (2005) Design, expression and characterisation of lysine-rich forms of the barley seed protein CI-2. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1747 221-227.

Toye, A.M., Ghosh, S., Young, M.T., Jones, G.K., Sessions, R.B., Ramauge, M., Leclerc, P., Basu, J., Delaunay, J., and Tanner, M.J. (2005) Design, expression and characterisation of lysine-rich forms of the barley seed protein CI-2. Blood 105 4088-4095.

Sessions R.B., Thomas, G.L., and Parker, M.J. (2004) Water as a conformational editor in protein folding. Journal of Molecular Biology 343 1125-1133.