Dr Satpal Virdee
Background
Satpal Virdee, an MRC Career Development Fellow currently working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at Cambridge, UK has been appointed to a Programme Leader position in SCILLS. Satpal received a 1st class honours degree in Computer-aided chemistry from the University of Surrey in 2004 and a Ph.D. from Birkbeck College London in 2008 where he worked with Gabriel Waksman on the synthesis and biophysical characterisation of Src SH2 domains.
He joined Jason Chin's laboratory at LMB in March 2009 where, over the past couple of years, he was able to combine genetic code expansion technology and chemoselective chemistry to achieve the enzyme‑independent synthesis of atypical polyubiquitin chains. Working in collaboration with David Komander at the LMB, he went on to solve the crystal structure of Lys6‑linked diubiquitin and exploited these atypical polyubiquitin chains to determine the specificities of a number of deubiquitylases. This led to the development of new fluoresence‑based assays for the quantitative characterization of deubiquitylase activity that should be useful for the high‑throughput screening of deubiquitylase inhibitors. When he joins SCILLS, Satpal aims are to continue to develop important ubiquitin‑related research tools that will accelerate the development of this field.
University of Dundee