Dr John George, Reader

Dr John George

Reader

Senior lecturer in Microbiology with an interest in drug discovery.

John is particularly interested in using computational methods to understand how biochemical pathways are organised and regulated. We can then check the computational predictions against data generated by laboratory experiments and determine whether they agree or not! Either way he finds this method excellent at either confirming current knowledge or highlighting areas of uncertainty. This work also acts as stepping stones towards the ultimate goal of generating a whole cell model.

Current Teaching

  • Contemporary research in biomedical sciences
  • Infection and immunity

Research Interests

John's current research involves building a computational model of the synthesis of the bacterial skin (lipopolysaccharides, phospholipids and peptidoglycan). So far he has successfully completed an integrated model involving LPS and phospholipids and validated it using experimental evidence.

The computational models can additionally be used as a guide for drug discovery as they can identify the most susceptible enzyme within a pathway. The model has been used successfully to identify 2 new antimicrobial agents which are currently in pre-clinical development.

Dr John George, Reader