PhD Biochemistry (2002), University of Dundee, MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit (Professor Sir P. Cohen, FRS)
Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
Recent publications [here]
My main interests lie in the development and application of biochemical and biophysical (mass spectrometry, ion mobility) techniques to study cellular signalling (proteins and their modifications) both qualitatively and quantitatively. While much of the work in my group is the application of methods to investigate specific systems of interest (NF-kB signalling, glycan profiling, response to stress in yeast and mammalian systems), these applied studies are underpinned by fundamental investigations into the behaviour and manipulation of (modified) peptides in the gas-phase to better derive useful information.
My PhD under the supervision of Prof. Sir Philip Cohen in the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee primed an interest in phosphorylation-regulated signalling, which has underpinned the rest of my research career. I relocated to the University of Colorado, Boulder, where I worked with Prof. Natalie Ahn (HHMI) to develop skills in the MS analysis of phosphopeptides. During this time I was awarded an independent fellowship by the American Heart Association (AHA) and received an AHA postdoctoral prize.
I moved back to the UK in 2004 to work with Professor Simon Gaskell in the Michael Barber Centre at the University of Manchester, a world-renowned expert in biological mass spectrometry, and was subsequently awarded a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship (2007-2011). Having acted as Director for the Michael Barber Centre for Mass Spectrometry from 2009 to 2013, I took up the post of Reader in Proteomics in PFG in May 2013 and was promoted to Chair of Biological Mass Spectrometry in 2014.