Seminar

Tumour suppressor p53. From structure to drug design.

Prof. Alan Fersht

Professor Fersht´s current work is mainly in two specific areas. The first is in elucidating at atomic resolution how proteins fold and unfold, using advanced structural and biophysical methods on engineered proteins. His method of F-value analysis of mutated proteins is now the standard procedure for characterizing experimentally transition states for protein folding and unfolding and benchmarking simulation at atomic resolution. The second is using the same biophysical methods to study how mutation affects proteins in the cell cycle, particularly the tumour suppressor p53, in order to design novel anti-cancer drugs that function by restoring the activity of mutated proteins.