Jamie is currently employed as a Research PhD. Candidate (Computer Science and Molecular biology) at the Center of Systems and Synthetic Biology, department of Computer Science at Royal Holloway University of London. [ visit academic site ]


Drug Design, Chemical, Pharmacological research

Jamie assisted research efforts at the Biomedical Sciences department of
St. Georges Hospital Medical School working with Prof. Brian Austen (chair of the Alzheimers association) on developing neuroprotective drug molecules for neurodegenerative disorders. The current drugs under development are Peptide based PDZ binding ligands Jamie-3-Asn and Jamie-3-Glu based on the work of Pizerchio and Spaller et al and Austen et al.

The current drugs under development are Peptide based PDZ binding ligands Jamie-3-Asn and Jamie-3-Glu based on the work of Pizerchio and Spaller et al and Austen et al.

(Top) Jamie using a Carl Zeiss Fluorescent microscope (Bottom) Jamie-3-Asn drug stained neuronal cells using 3 fluorophore

Jamie's current work is a continuation of his Masters Thesis entitled "Characterisation of Neuroprotective PDZ binding ligands". The objective was to design a drug molecule to target a protein called PSD-95 in neuronal cells of the brain in order to slow the progression of neurodegenerative disorders which currently have no cure (such as Alzheimers, Epilepsy, and Stroke). Jamie utilised Computational Chemistry and molecular modeling to select a group of potential drug molecules to synthesise for targeting neuronal cells. He then used chemical synthesis and analytical chemistry techniques (Mass spectrometry, HPLC) to synthesise and characterise these molecules prior to testing them on cultured neuronal cells from the SHSY-5Y neuroblastoma cell line. - As a byproduct of this work Jamie also developed the Zeus Molecular visualisation software in order to assist his work. This was subsequently used to  generate molecular imagery for a Poster presentation and has been listed at the World Index of BioMolecular Visualization Resources

Continuation of this work involves using Immunohistochemistry to label and visualise the peptide drugs within the cells (The gallery hosts some images from this process). Various cellular components and a location on the Jamie-3 drug molecule are labelled with antibodies and fluorescent dyes which fluoresce (glow) on application of laser light at a particular wavelength. This allows us to visualise the penetration and the co-localisation of the drug with the other stained cellular components.

This work has been presented as a Poster Presentation at RSC (The Royal Society of Chemistry) Protein and Peptide Science Group Early Stage Researcher Meeting in November 2011 and subsequently at  St. Georges Research Day November 2011.