Graduate Student - Ph.D.

University of Cambridge

Trinity College

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK)

Undergraduate

Electronics and Communication Engg

Department of Biotechnology

Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering (Chennai, India)

Simon Bullock

Motor-driven mRNA localisation

Cytoskeletal motors play fundamental roles in cytoplasmic sorting of organelles and macromolecules and in cell division. This fascinating class of proteins is able to recognise specific cargoes and use mechanochemical energy to transport them to their destination. Aberrant motor function is associated with many diseases, including neurodegeneration and cancer, so we need to understand the molecular mechanisms of how specific cargoes are recognised and transported.

Despite the importance of the problem, relatively little is known about how motor complexes work in vivo. We have been investigating transport mechanisms using the fruitfly Drosophila as a highly tractable model organism. We have identified proteins involved in recognition and transport of specific mRNA molecules and have used advanced imaging techniques to show, for the first time, that RNA sequences can regulate the motility of motor complexes. These data suggest that regulation of motors by their cargoes might be of widespread significance. Potential projects in this area include: (1) the biochemical identification of novel components of transport complexes and the characterisation of their molecular roles in flies and mammals using molecular biology, genetics and state-of-the-art microscopy and (2) the dissection of detailed mechanisms of motor regulation using single molecule in vitro motility assays for bidirectional mRNA transport, which we have established.

2010-present Medical Research Council - Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) International Scholarship

2010-present Cambridge International Scholarship at the University of Cambridge