Membrane protein folding and function studied by mass spectrometry

Prof A Ashcroft's profile is coming soon

Career overview

Professor Sheena Radford joined the University of Leeds in 1995 as a Lecturer in the School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, progressing to Reader in 1998 and Professor in 2000. In 2009, she became the Deputy Director of the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, and served as its Director from 2012 to 2021. She was appointed Astbury Professor of Biophysics in 2014 and became a Royal Society Research Professor in 2021. Professor Radford graduated with a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham and completed her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor R.N. Perham, FRS. She has held various postdoctoral positions and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Molecular Sciences. Throughout her career, Professor Radford has supervised around 25 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in her laboratory, with over 160 individuals successfully progressing from her lab into various careers in academic research, industry, and technical editing. She has published more than 360 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and has delivered over 475 invited lectures at national and international conferences across numerous countries. In the last five years, she has served on five major research funding panels and 20 Scientific Advisory Boards for prestigious institutions and companies. Additionally, she has been involved with editorial boards for several journals and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Molecular Biology. She is also a Trustee and Council member of the Dementia Research Institute, UK, and the Regional Champion for the Academy of Medical Sciences. Professor Radford has received multiple awards, including the Biochemical Society Colworth Medal in 1996, the Royal Society of Chemistry AstraZeneca Prize in 2005, the Hites Award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry in 2009, the Protein Society Carl Branden Award in 2013, and the Rita and John Cornforth Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015. She was elected a member of EMBO in 2007, a member of Academia Europaea in 2020, and has been recognised as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2010), the Royal Society (2014), and the Royal Society of Biology (2021). She was made an honorary member of the British Biophysical Society in 2014 and a Fellow of the Biophysical Society in 2018. In 2022, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège, and in 2024, she became an International Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).

Research interests

Professor Radford''s research focuses on fundamental structural molecular biology, specifically the measurement of the conformational dynamics of proteins and the elucidation of the role that these motions play in protein folding and misfolding of both water-soluble and membrane proteins. Their research employs a wide range of biophysical methods, combining techniques from protein chemistry, molecular biology, chemical biology, and structural biology. Over the last 35 years, they have concentrated on delineating the mechanisms by which proteins fold or misfold, how dynamic excursions enable proteins to self-associate into amyloid fibrils—which are complex macromolecular assemblies associated with some of the deadliest human diseases—and how proteins fold into the bacterial outer membranes of Gram-negative organisms. Current major projects include: Mechanism(s) of protein misfolding and assembly into amyloid, Outer Membrane Protein (OMP) folding – The role of chaperones & BAM, Stabilising proteins of therapeutic interest against aggregation, Method development (MS, NMR, single molecule, biophysical methods).