
Projects Available for Students

We recently discovered a new type of O-glycosylation on three human platelet proteins including multimerin-1 (MMRN1). The N-terminal elastin microfibril interface (EMI) domain of each was O-glycosylated with the sugar fucose (O-fucosylated) and this was needed for protein secretion. We have now discovered that two largely uncharacterised enzymes (FUT10 and FUT11) mediate this novel O-fucosylation. Our data show that O-fucosylation is important for protein secretion. Our goal is to completely understand the regulation and functions of this protein post-translational modification system.

Intermittent fasting is an effective intervention for the treatment of metabolic disease. But how the proteome in each tissue is reprogrammed by this dietary intervention is currently unknown. Our goal is to use state-of-the-art proteomic analysis to uncover the complex interaction between organ systems that leads to the beneficial effects of intermittent fasting.
Characterisation of erusiolin a novel putative hormone

Using our SPEA methodology and unbiased mass spectrometry-based proteomics has allowed us to identify several new putative hormones in human plasma. Erusiolin is among these, which we hypothesise plays a role in appetite regulation. Our goal is to characterise the role of this hormone in mammalian physiology using human clinical trial samples, CRISPR knock-out mice, peptide injection experiments and bioinformatic analysis.