Sarah Routledge

Microbes are used in many industrial processes to produce high-value chemicals. However, these products are often toxic to the cells, limiting the yields obtained. My project aims to identify the changes to microbial membrane protein and lipid compositions which allow them adapt to product toxicity and production stresses; this will ultimately allow us to engineer more tolerant strains to improve the yields and efficiency of these biotechnological processes.

I am also interested in the interactions of a peripheral membrane protein, receptor component protein (RCP), which is thought to modulate signalling of the calcitonin gene-related (CGRP) receptor. This GPCR is implicated in migraine, and a better understanding of its interaction parteners could uncover additional drug targets. I use signalling assays to study this in mammalian cell lines as well as using yeast to overexpress and purify the interacting proteins of interest.