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I am a pharmacologist with exposure to a broad range of techniques and a keen interest in new technologies. These have included my development of a simple, robust and information-rich fluorometric microplate assay for simultaneously identifying agonists, antagonists and allosteric modulators using a fragment-based approach. Hit rates exceeded 6% which I validated by electrophysiology, flow cytometry, fluorescence polarisation, radioligand binding and computational modelling. In my lab I have always encouraged a culture of sharing ideas and have always been keen to consider projects that are interesting and innovative.

Recently I identified compounds as potential cardiovascular and contraceptive drugs, and explored the role of voltage-gated ion channels in cardiac pathology. These studies enabled ground-breaking work into single-molecule interactions, enabling dynamic drug-receptor interactions to be measured by fluorescence microscopy with molecular-scale spatial resolution and micro-second temporal resolution.

I have also worked on Cys-loop ligand-gated ion channels (5-HT3, nACH, GABA, Glycine, ELIC, GLIC), discovering new ligands (including among others, VUF10166, which is now widely available from commercial suppliers) and explored the function and pharmacology of both the new ligands and of clinically used drugs.

Most recently I lead studies on the properties of antiemetics (granisetron, tropisetron), models for dementia (scopolamine) and a range of natural compounds (epibatidine, bilobalide, ginkgolide, citral, linalool, eucalyptol).


The techniques I routinely use are;
  1. Manual & automated patch-clamp
  2. Manual & automated two-electrode voltage-clamp (TEVC)
  3. Voltage-clamp fluorometry
  4. Ligand-gated & Voltage-gated ion channels
  5. Fragment-based drug-discovery (FBDD)
  6. Flow cytometry
  7. Fluorescence polarisation
  8. Cell culture & animal handling - primary cells & cell lines
  9. Radioligand saturation/competition & kinetics
  10. Molecular biology
  11. Immunocytochemistry
  12. Fluorescent microplate assays (e.g. FlexStation)
  13. Fluorescence Microscopy - TIRF, Confocal, SEM & TEM
  14. Ligand SAR
  15. In silico modelling & docking

I am keen to continue my involvement in pharmacology, drug discovery and technology development and would welcome any opportnuites for consultancy or work within the biotech / pharmaceutical sectors.

Please direct any queries to:

e: ajt44@talktalk.net