Roles of post-translational modifications in neurodegenerative protein aggregation

A fully funded PhD studentship position is available in the Aprile group in the Department of Chemistry at the White City Campus of Imperial College London.

Our research focuses on understanding the roles of post-translational modifications (PTMs) in disease, particularly in neurodegeneration and dementia. To do so, we develop antibodies to probe how protein aggregates, called amyloids, form and are toxic to the nervous system.

PTMs play crucial roles in biology as they expand and regulate protein function. PTMs also affect the formation and toxicity of amyloids. Despite compelling evidence on the crucial role of PTMs in amyloid formation and toxicity, we still do not fully understand the molecular details of their toxic and protective effects.

Your project will focus on identifying PTMs, which are able to redirect, delay, or accelerate amyloid formation towards a non-pathological process.

You will use chemical biology and biochemistry approaches for generating PTM-amyloids, antibody production techniques, and biophysical structural and functional analysis of proteins.