Mechanism and inhibition of chitin synthesis

As part of his Fellowship, Helge intends to investigate a bacterial homologue of fungal chitin synthases for structural and kinetic studies, with the objective of understanding on a molecular level the reaction mechanism of processive glycosyltransferases and to identify novel chitin synthase inhibitors. He will be working in the laboratories of Dr João H Moraise Cabral at the Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular (Portugal) and Dr David Gray at the University of Dundee, as well as Professor Neil Gow and Dr Carol Munro at the University of Aberdeen.