Jim Horne is a Research Associate in the Department of Biochemistry whose research focusses on the structure and mechanism of bacterial cell envelope protein machines. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the most pressing challenges of our time. With the increasing misuse and overuse of antibiotics, bacteria and other microorganisms have evolved, rendering many previously effective treatments ineffective.
One of the ways we can tackle this challenge is to develop new drugs and re-sensitize resistant bacteria to old ones. Better understanding of the structure and mechanisms underlying the molecular determinants of both virulence and AMR is essential to this. Gram-negative bacteria have large protein machines spanning two membranes. One class of these protein complexes, called efflux pumps, are responsible for ‘pumping out’ harmful molecules bacteria detect inside themselves into the environment. These same machines have evolved divergently to secrete their own toxins which bacteria use to evade our immune defences and/or destroy host cells to parasitize nutrients
His research aims to understand the structure and function of these efflux pumps and the ‘type 1’ secretion system of E. coli using cryo-EM and complementary biochemical, biophysical, and microbiological experiments. Jim hopes that with a better ‘blueprint’ of these machines we can begin to find new ways to target them.
