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The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) Node of the CCeMMP houses international leaders in the application of Structural Biology to understand the structure and dynamic of key membrane-bound signalling receptors that control essential signalling transduction pathways involved in cell development, fate determination, and polarity. Their dysregulation underlies the cause of many human cancers, classifying them as a major target class for therapeutic drug development.
This program of research at WEHI, that focuses on using cryo-EM to explore the druggability of target receptor membrane proteins has three arms, (i) technical advancement in cryo-EM, (ii) application of cryo-EM to explore structure and function of (a) essential components of the Wnt signalling pathways and (b) a subset of Receptor Tyrosine Kinases identified as critical regulators of Wnt signalling, (iii) the application of the knowledge gained to drug discovery.

Research focus areas

This node provides the following research opportunities:

Cell Surface Receptors (G protein-coupled receptors)

Node(s): The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute University of Wollongong Monash University

In line with the advanced technical training that is a core feature of the Doctoral training program, we are exploring way to advance each of the 3 key areas in the workflow for cryo-EM of GPCRs from enabling biochemistry, to efficiency and robustness of vitrification and imaging, through to optimised data processing and the ability to directly derive 3D conformational dynamics.

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