Personal Statement
I am originally from Atlanta, GA, and did my undergraduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where I majored in Chemistry and French. My career began in the lab of Arthur E. Johnson at Texas A&M University in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. There, using a novel in vitro approach incorporating a labeled lysyl-tRNA into a growing nascent polypeptide, we discovered a seminal understanding that the pore through which all membrane proteins pass plays an active role in membrane protein biogenesis. This work was followed by a study that was the first demonstration that transmembrane regions begin to form within the tunnel of the ribosome.
For my post-doctoral work, I moved to Washington, DC, to work at the National Institutes of Health (USA). We answered a long-standing question in the field of immunology about what path the MHC II molecules take to reach the antigen-containing compartments. My work in membrane protein trafficking led me to receive a fellowship from the Irving Institute. However, I was offered a position as a staff scientist at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). I decided to join her lab to broaden my training. At NCI, I started working on G-protein coupled receptors and received an award from the director of NCI.
In 2009, I obtained an independent position via a career transition award (Ramon y Cajal fellowship) from the Spanish government. As part of the section on Molecular Neuro-Biology, I started my own lab and studied the heterodimerization process between families of GPCRs, a phenomenon discovered in the last decade. My lab was one of the first labs to implement a biochemical fingerprint to identify GPCR oligomers in tissue. We were also one of the first labs to start using the proximity ligation assay in cells and tissue to identify and later quantify GPCR oligomer complexes. We provided detailed architectural information about these complexes using energy transfer and fluorescence complementation approaches. In addition to identifying complexes in vivo, we also developed the use of disrupting peptides for these complexes to interrogate their actual function. These peptides are superior to using knock-out animals as they maintain the individual functional receptors while ablating the complexes.
Before joining the University of Liverpool in September 2023, I was deputy dean of global engagement at Queen Mary University of London, Faculty of Medicine and Denstistry and ran successful research programs focused on Drug Discovery including helping start the first PhD training programme on AI and drug discovery in the UK. Prior to that I have worked at the University of East Anglia, and subsequently at the University of Surrey where we obtained approval and accreditation for a new School of Veterinary Medicine.

Research Overview
One of the most important questions in Biology is to understand how cells sense their environment. A major piece of this complex puzzle are the superfamily of G-protein coupled Receptors whose over 500 members make it the most abundant membrane protein family in mammals. By some estimates, GPCR's represent one third of all existing drug-targets, and only ~10% of GPCRs are known targets. This fact makes GPCRs extremely attractive for further study in order to understand how to exploit the other 90% for potential therapy.

A major challenge is to better understand how these receptors function in health and disease states so that we may increase the number of potential drug targets. My lab works on a variety of areas of GPCR function including:

1) GPCR oligomers: How does GPCR oligomerization impact function? Where are these complexes located and how at the molecular level are they organized? (eg. Tissue Areas, cell types, organelles, expression level, frequency, and stoichiometry) What is the physiological role of these heteromers and how do they function both at the cellular and physiological levels.

2) Molecular pharmacology of GPCRs: How does a drug interact with a GPCR? Can we design new drugs based on this knowledge and demonstrate their efficacy at a given GPCR for potential drug development?

3) GPCRs in cancer: Numerous GPCRs are upregulated in tumour cells. We have identified several of these and are currently studying how expression of these alters patient prognosis and how they might be used as biomarkers or as drug targets.