Prof Yvonne Jones
Division of Structural Biology
Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics
Oxford
Studying the shape and structure of proteins
Professor Yvonne Jones is a leading expert in the field of 'structural biology' - studying the shape of molecules. She directs our Receptor Structure Research Group in Oxford, which is investigating proteins on the surface of cells that play key roles in cancer. This information will help researchers to develop new cancer drugs that target these proteins.
Professor Jones and her team use sophisticated lab techniques such as x-ray crystallography to work out the shapes and structures of proteins. They are also using fluorescence microscopy, which lights up the proteins in living cells, to find out more about how they function.
The researchers are using these techniques to investigate proteins that stick to receptors on the surface of cells and pass messages to the cell nucleus. These proteins need to 'fit' their receptor in the same way that a key fits a lock so studying their 3D shape is vital to understanding how they work.
Professor Jones is also interested in how mutations change the shape of proteins and cause communication pathways to go wrong in cancer.
Her team is studying proteins involved in the Wnt pathway. These are normally important for cell growth during embryo development but they have also been linked to cancer. Structural information about Wnt proteins will improve the researchers' understanding of how this pathway works in cancer cells and how they might target it with new drugs.
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