Craig Lumb

Computational studies of signalling at the cell membrane

Background

I read Natural Sciences at St. John's College, Cambridge between October 2004 and June 2008. For my undergraduate research project in my final year I worked with Dr Mark Miller in the Theory Sector of the Department of Chemistry, using molecular dynamics simulations to study the behaviour and topological characteristics of low density dipolar colloidal gels.

In October 2008 I moved to Merton College, Oxford for a DPhil with Professor Mark Sansom here in the Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biochemistry Unit. I am funded by the MRC.

Research

The ability of cells to detect and respond to changes in their surrounding environment via cell signalling pathways is crucial for many biological processes including cell proliferation and survival, and disruption of this signalling can lead to a variety of human diseases such as cancer. Often, a key event in the signalling cascade is the reversible recruitment of peripheral membrane proteins to the surface of the cytoplasmic leaflet of the cell membrane. These proteins have a variety of functions at the membrane surface and are involved in membrane-mediated protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions essential for subsequent downstream signalling. Protein-membrane association is achieved with the aid of a comparatively rare class of negatively charged lipids called the phosphoinositides (PIs), which are thought to recruit cytosolic proteins to the membrane through electrostatic interactions. We are currently studying several of these PI-binding proteins using a variety of modelling and simulation techniques in an effort to understand how they interact with the membrane. We also collaborate with a number of experimental research groups in the UK and in the USA:

• Professor Tatiana Kutateladze - University of Colorado School of Medicine
• Professor Rob Stahelin - Indiana University School of Medicine and University of Notre Dame
• Dr Rob Gilbert - Division of Structural Biology, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford
• Professor David Calderwood - Yale University School of Medicine

Publications

2. Craig N. Lumb, Ju He, Yi Xue, Phillip J. Stansfeld, Robert V. Stahelin, Tatiana G. Kutateladze and Mark S.P. Sansom
   Biophysical and computational studies of membrane penetration by the GRP1 pleckstrin homology domain
   Structure (2011) 19 1338-1346
   
   
1. Mark A. Miller, Ronald Blaak, Craig N. Lumb and Jean-Pierre Hansen
   Dynamical arrest in low density dipolar colloidal gels
   Journal of Chemical Physics (2009) 130, 114507