UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship for Dr Weston Struwe
UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship for Dr Weston Struwe
Dr Weston Struwe, a Senior Research Associate in the Department and previously Chief Scientific Officer of Refeyn, a University of Oxford spin-out, is one of eight Oxford researchers to receive an award from the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships scheme. The scheme, which is run by UK Research and Innovation, helps universities and businesses in the UK recruit, develop and retain the world’s best researchers and innovators and aims to develop the next wave of world-class research and innovation leaders in academia and business.
Dr Struwe says: “The aim of my research is to create new ways to understand how complex oligosaccharides, or glycans, fine-tune the structural dynamics and interactions of proteins, principally those involved in viral infection and immune signaling. If we can manipulate glycans to interpret their biophysical and functional properties, then we can use this information to make better biopharmaceutical drugs or protein-based vaccines where glycans are fundamentally important but largely enigmatic.”
Dr Struwe's team will develop novel protein engineering and chemical biology tools as well as advanced methods in mass spectrometry to uncover how specific glycans shape biological processes. His research has focused on understanding how proteins are glycosylated and the role of glycans in host-pathogen interactions among host receptors, innate immune lectin receptors and anti-viral lectins.
