Olivia Gittins

• CDT Doctoral Researcher Supervisor: Martin Noble
• Email: O.Gittins@newcastle.ac.uk
• Project Title: Protein aptamers to enable structure-based drug discovery – making the undruggable druggable

Institution: Newcastle University

Project Summary: Protein aptamers (PAs) are macromolecules which can be used as molecular recognition agents, exhibiting excellent binding affinity for many targets. They can therefore be used to enable techniques such as surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and homogenous binding assays (e.g. MST, HTRF), as well as to alter the properties of a target, making it amenable to crystallisation or increase the size of a target to make it more amenable to cryoEM or for use in ligand-observed NMR.

Successful implementation of the protein aptamers (PA) platform approach on an exemplar target protein will establish the basis of this technology for use in the drug discovery pipeline. In addition, successful deployment of the PA platform will allow our drug discovery team to engage with challenging disease targets that have proved refractory to prosecution with current technology.  

Interesting Fact: I am a keen baker and make pretty good biscoff cupcakes (if I do say so myself!).