Dr. Wei-Feng Xue
What are the mechanisms that govern the formation of amyloid protein structures associated with human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, Prion diseases and systemic amyloidosis? This is a question of fundamental biological importance, and the focus of the research in Dr. Wei-Feng Xue's lab.
Dr Wei-Feng Xue is Senior Lecturer in Chemical biology in the School of Biosciences. He received his PhD degree in Physical Chemistry on research regarding protein-protein/protein-ligand interactions in Prof. Sara Linse’s group at Lund University in Sweden (2006). He then went on to do postdoctoral research concerning the mechanism and the biological impact of amyloid assembly in Prof. Sheena Radford’s laboratory at the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology in the University of Leeds (2006-2011). His research interests include supramolecular protein assembly, protein folding and misfolding, amyloid and prions, and AFM imaging. As a member of the KFG, he contributes his expertise in amyloid and prion biophysics to the group, and conduct research projects on the fundamental mechanisms of prion growth, propagation and transmission using S. cerevisiae yeast prion models.
Interested in joining us as Postdoc, PhD student or Research Masters student on research projects on amyloid biochemistry, protein biophysics, or imaging of biological structures? Contact: W.F.Xue@kent.ac.uk
Visit Wei-Feng's page on the University of Kent website and the Xue lab's Facebook page
Past Lab members
Dr. David Beal
Dave originally trained as a chemist worked on a project to understand the fundamental mechanisms governing the mechanical stability of amyloid fibrils. He graduated from lab and obtained his PhD degree in 2016 and is now a postdoctoral researcher working in Prof. Mick Tuite's lab.
Dr. Ricardo Marchante
Ricardo is a skilled yeast molecular and cell biologist. As a postdoctoral research in the lab between 2012-2016, Ricardo worked on projects to resolve the infectious potential of amyloid particles using yeast prions as a model system. He has since moved city and model system, and he is now working in the University of Cologne on protein aggregation in nematode worm C. elegans.
Chloë Pain
Chloë worked on a project to understand how molecular chaperones interact with amyloid aggregates and fragment amyloid fibrils to produce small transmissible seeds in the lab between 2016-2017.
Blake Andrews
Blake is a Forensic Chemistry with a Year in Industry Graduate from the University of Kent. He carried out a Chemistry Research Masters project jointly advised with Dr. Chris Serpell in the School of Physical Sciences. His research interest is in designing novel templated amyloid fibril self-assemblies in order to control their shape and size.
Ioannis Emmanouilidis
Ioannis worked on a biophysical project to investigate the amyloid cross-seeding phenomenon during summer of 2017