Biochemistry and Biophysics

Our research employs biochemical and biophysical approaches to address key issues in diverse areas, across the scale range from atom to organism.

Much of our work focuses on the synthesis, regulation and organisation of nucleic acids.

We use a variety of advanced biophysical, biochemical and cellular techniques, including NMR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, confocal microscopy and single molecule fluorescence.

Hand in glove holding Petri plate with bacteria Staphylococcus Aureus, Moraxella Catarrhalis

Impact

Our research uses cutting-edge molecular and biophysical techniques to deliver positive benefits for industry, the environment and public health.

We focus on research that addresses two global challenges:

Research highlights

Decoding the opium poppy genome

Unravelling the process of body odour production

Combatting land contamination with a fly gene

People

Name	Expertise
Daniela Barillà	Mechanisms of genome segregation in Bacteria and Archaea Maintenance of multidrug resistance plasmids DNA-protein interactions
Christoph Baumann	Single-molecule detection and manipulation Microbial membrane biophysics Biophysics of protein-DNA interactions
Neil C Bruce	Plant and microbial metabolism of xenobiotic compounds Carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes) Cytochromes P450
James Chong	Anaerobic digestion Applied systems biology Methanogenic archaea
Dawn Coverley	Functional organisation of the mammalian cell nucleus Cell cycle control and cancer Structure, function and exploitation of CIZ1
Gareth J O Evans	Neuronal signalling Neuronal development Neuroblastoma
Michelle Hawkins	DNA replication Bacterial replication termination Replication-transcription conflicts
Ian A Graham FRS	Metabolism of alkaloids and terpenoids Medicinal plants Industrial biotechnology of high value chemicals from plants
Mark Leake	Single-molecule biophysics Molecular machines DNA-protein interactions
Benjamin Lichman	Plant natural product biosynthesis Evolution of plant specialised metabolism Mechanism and applications of enzymes from plant specialised metabolism
Frans Maathius	Abiotic plant stress Plant nutrition Membrane transport
Michael Plevin	Non-coding RNA biology Molecular recognition Protein and RNA structural biophysics
Jennifer R Potts	Structural biology Host-pathogen interactions Surface proteins of Gram positive bacteria
Federico Sabbadin	Carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes) Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases Oxidases
Gavin H Thomas	Function and mechanism of bacterial transporters Metabolism of insect bacterial symbiosis Chemical tolerance in microbial chassis
Thierry Tonon	Algal physiology and metabolism Algal metabolic pathways and enzymes Biotechnological applications of algae and algal genes
Reidun Twarock	Mathematical virology Geometry, group theory and tiling RNA virus assembly
Daniel Ungar	Golgi organization Molecular investigation of vesicle tethering Mammalian glycan biosynthesis
Robert White	Gene transcription in health and disease Control of tRNA expression Molecular approaches to enhance transgene expression