Bayliss Lab
Mitotic Regulation and cancer team
at the institute for cancer research, London
Our research aim is to decipher the structural mechanisms that underpin the regulation of cellular events, especially during mitosis.
We apply structural biology and biochemistry techniques to the study of protein kinase regulation, protease regulation, ubiquitination, protein-protein interactions and to the development of novel cancer therapeutics.
If you would like to find out more, please select from the Background, Projects or People links.
If you have questions about our research, or are interested in joining the lab please do get in touch.
CONTACT: richard.bayliss@icr.ac.uk
KEYWORDS: Cancer, Mitosis, Structural Biology, Drug Discovery, Mitotic Spindle, Centrosome, Spindle Assembly Checkpoint, Cell Cycle, Kinase.
TECHNIQUES: Recombinant Protein Expression, X-ray crystallography, Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Isothermal Titration Calorimetry.
We would like to thank our sponsors:
The Institute of Cancer Research
Or, to put it another way...
We study cells that look like this:
Metaphase Mitotic Spindle
DNA - blue
microtubules - green
We purify the proteins that control the spindle and crystallise them:
Aurora-A kinase crystals
We expose the crystals to X-rays, producing diffraction data. We use this data to reveal the atomic detail of the protein structure:
Aurora-A / TPX2 complex structure
Aurora-A - grey
TPX2 - red/pink
The structures help us to understand the function of the proteins. This technique can also be used to investigate how drug-like molecules target proteins which helps in the design of more potent drug-like molecules that can be developed into pharmaceuticals.
