BSCB Newsletter, Winter 2005

News

Hooke medal winner
This year's Hooke medal lecture will be given by David Owen from the new Cambridge Institute for Medical Research.

David has been an independent researcher since 2000 and has an outstanding track record in applying structural methods to proteins involved in membrane trafficking. His lab uses a combination of structural (protein X-ray crystallography, in collaboration with Phil Evans MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology), biochemical, biophysical and cell biological studies on individual domains, whole proteins and protein complexes from a variety of vesicle coats.

Their current work focuses on the AP2, AP1, GGA1 clathrin adaptors (with Scottie Robinson CIMR) and the COPI complex, which is distantly related to APs and involved in trafficking from the Golgi to the endoplasmic reticulum (with Rainer Duden University of London).

In collaboration with Mathew Seaman (CIMR) they are studying the structure and function of components of the retromer complex that is involved in non-clathrin mediated traffic from endosomes and with Stefan Honing (University of Gottingen) they are also studying how the recruitment of vesicle coats is regulated.