An integrated investigation of conformational machines in viruses
Supervisors:
Dr Joe Grove, School of Infection and Immunity (University of Glasgow)
Dr Rebecca Beveridge, Pure and Applied Chesmistry (University of Glasgow)
Summary:
Viruses possess protein machinery that is responsible for fusing host and viral membranes; these are essential for the entry of many viruses in to host cells. The most (in)famous example of a viral membrane fusion protein is SARS-CoV-2 spike; an animation of its action can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/510310488#t=20. Mechanistic understanding of viral fusion machinery has directly guided vaccine design (including during the COVID-19 pandemic) and informs on membrane fusion events occurring across the tree of life.
This Phd project involves a multi-pronged approach to understand viral fusion machinery. It combines the structure-to-function molecular virology approaches of Dr. Grove (University of Glasgow) with the development of native mass spectrometry (nMS) methods in the lab of Dr Beveridge (Strathclyde). nMS is a fast and versatile method that is applicable to a wide range of proteins that are challenging to study with other techniques, such as membrane proteins and proteins that exist in various conformations. The student will receive a comprehensive training in functional/structural analysis of viral proteins, nMS and associated analytical chemistry methods. Aside from technical achievements we expect this project to deliver new fundamental knowledge on membrane fusion that will be relevant across virology and cell biology.