Professor of Biochemistry and a Director of Sussex Neuroscience at University of Sussex.

Heading up the Serpell Research Group, our research focuses on protein misfolding and self-assembly of peptides. A major focus is protein misfolding in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimers disease. We use multidisciplinary approaches including structural biology, chemical biology, molecular biophysics, cell biology, neuroscience and neurobiology. 
We have been awarded funding from the Alzheimer's Society, Royal Society, EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC, Alzheimer's Research UK, ARC and TauRX therapeutics/Wista.

Bio

Undergraduate degree at the University of Nottingham -BSc. Honors in Biochemistry and Genetics followed by a BBSRC funded PhD studentship at the University of Oxford in the Laboratory for Molecular Biophyics supervised by Dr Colin Blake (1996). My thesis work focussed on the structure of amyloid fibrils and we produced the first generic description of the cross-beta structure for amyloid resulting in several publications and a DPhil. thesis titled "The Structure of Amyloid fibrils".

I moved to Canada to undertake a postdoctoral researcher position at University of Toronto  in the Centre for Neurodegenerative diseases with Dr Paul Fraser where my work focussed on structural studies of the Alzheimer's disease proteins, presenilin and amyloid beta.  I commenced my independent research career in a post at the MRC Centre, Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Here we produced the very first visualisation of the cross-beta amyloid fibril using Cryo-Electron microscopy and published several other studies highlighting the protofilament constituents of fibrils from different amyloidoses.

In 2000, I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship to work at the Cambridge Institute for Molecular Research at University of Cambridge, working alongside Professor David Lomas. In 2003, I moved to the University of Sussex, in the Department of Biochemistry. In 2010 I was promoted to Professor.  Since then, I have led a research group supervising Masters and undergraduate projects and provided lectures, practical classes and module convening for the Biochemistry and Neuroscience subject areas. My work continues to focus on protein self-assembly  and the role in protein misfolding and neurodegenerative diseases.

Expertise: 

• Neurogeneration
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Dementia
• Protein Misfolding Diseases
• Molecular & Cell Biology
• Structural Biology

Available for:

• Science Communication
• Public Lectures
• Q&A Sessions
• Public Engagement Events
• Talks/Presentations
• Consultancy/Advisory work
• Mentoring/Coaching