1982
BSc Biophysics, University of Leeds

1984
PhD Biophysics, University of Leeds

1985-1993
Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Leeds

1993-1999
Royal Society University Research Fellow, University College London

1999-2002
Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Manchester

Bioinformatics

My research lies in the field of bioinformatics, specifically in the area of protein sequence analysis. I maintain a database of protein fingerprints (PRINTS), which is accessible for searching via the Web and available for local installation via anonymous ftp. PRINTS is a companion resource to PROSITE, providing both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly-determined sequences (it therefore has particular relevance in the current drive to analyse, and functionally annotate, data from the various genome projects).

Central to my research is the provision of a diagnostic resource for G-protein-coupled receptors. For this diverse group of proteins, ~250 fingerprints have been designed, allowing us to distinguish receptors at the clan, superfamily, family and receptor subtype levels. Future detailed analyses will show whether it is possible to discriminate between receptors on the basis of the ligands they bind, or the particular G-proteins to which they couple.

Another important avenue of research is the investigation of methods to improve fingerprint diagnostic performance, with a view to identifying distant family relationships and penetrating deeper into the Twilight Zone (e.g., by explicit consideration of structural information and generating PRINTS-derived substitution matrices).

An essential aspect of the work involves manual manipulation of protein sequence alignments. To facilitate this process, we have developed a suite of visualisation tools called Utopia. The newest of the tools is Utopia Documents, a novel PDF reader that adds interactive functionality to static PDF articles. Utopia Documents powers the Semantic Biochemical Journal published by Portland Press Ltd.

Projects within the group include:

• Design of tools for linking research articles with their underlying data
• Analysis of functional motifs that distinguish GPCR subtypes
• Structural and functional analysis of kinases
• New approaches for sequence alignment