Contact Details

Royal Society University Research Fellow,
Division of Structural Biology,
Henry Wellcome Building for Genomic Medicine,
Oxford, OX3 7BN, UK

Telephone: (+44) (0)1865 287535
E-mail: gilbert@strubi.ox.ac.uk

Research Areas

We use a combination of cryo-electron microscopy, X-ray crystallography, analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) and associated molecular biology techniques to investigate the structure and function of macromolecular complexes and the interactions undergone by proteins in solution. These three techniques have proven to be highly complementary, allowing us to obtain models for functional states of biologically-active complexes of proteins and nucleic acids. A major area of interest is the structure and function of ribosomes, including the structural basis for the beginning of protein synthesis in eukaryotes, recoding by viral mRNAs, and the co-translational folding of nascent proteins. Another major area of interest is membrane proteins, both integral membrane proteins such as integrins and also facultative membrane proteins such as the pore-forming toxins of bacteria and complement component proteins. We also work on virus structures and have made particular use of AUC in the study of cell-cell signaling proteins and their complexes.