Guest lecture from Professor Roslyn Hill from Aston University

Roslyn Bill is the Professor of Biotechnology at Aston University, UK. Her research interests focus on the development of yeast as a “cell factory” for recombinant protein production. The membrane proteins are the primary focus of her research group. These proteins play pivotal role in human physiology and are important drug targets. However, researching membrane proteins is cumbersome due to their low abundance in their native environment. Recombinant protein production is therefore often employed for structural and functional studies but still face a lot of challenges. Yeast microorganisms are a valuable tool in membrane research due to their low cost, ease and speed of culturing and a wide range of genetic tools available. They offer several advantages over prokaryotic expression hosts because of their advanced protein processing and secretion capabilities. Prof Roslyn Bill will explore the strategies for increasing the yield of recombinant membrane protein production that have been employed in her lab and through collaborations.