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Professor Sophie Jackson - Nature is abundant with examples of self assembly processes and life would not exist without them. In this talk, I will discuss some of the examples from the research going on in my group.

Professor Sophie Jackson

Abstract: Nature is abundant with examples of self assembly processes and life would not exist without them. In this talk, I will discuss some of the examples from the research going on in my group. How, and potentially why, proteins fold and self tie themselves into various knotted structures will be described with examples from our research on the structure, stability folding and function of 3-1 (trefoil knot) and 5-2 (Gordian knot) proteins. In addition, our more recent studies on the self assembly of natural and synthetic therapeutic peptides into amyloid fibrils and microcrystalline suspensions will be used to illustrate the pros and cons of these processes for Pharma. Finally, new results on a project aimed at capping and masking the antigen binding site of a therapeutic antibody, and uncapping and activating it at a tumour site, will be described, this process involving both assembly and disassembly processes.

Biography: Grew up in rural Cheshire with parents who had never gone to University and attended the local comprehensive school. Studied Chemistry at Oxford University with a final year research project in the group of Fraser Armstrong studying electron transfer in metalloproteins. Then moved to Imperial College, London to start a PhD with Alan Fersht. A year later I moved to Cambridge when he took up a position there. Finished my PhD in Cambridge then spent two years postdoc with Stuart Schreiber in the Chemistry Department at Harvard University. Returned to Cambridge in 1995 to take up a Royal Society University Research Fellow then became a lecturer, reader and am now Prof. of Chemical and Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Outdie of academia, I love Derbyshire and dogs.

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