Structural Immunology Group

Our major research interests lie in solution structural determinations of proteins and their interactions in the immune system, primarily involving the complement proteins and antibodies. Our major technologies include X-ray and neutron solution scattering and analytical ultracentrifugation. We use the X-ray ID02 and BM29 instruments at ESRF, the neutron SANS2d instrument at ISIS and the neutron instrument D22 at ILL.

We run two Beckman XL-I analytical ultracentrifuges which we make available to other groups at UCL. We also possess surface plasmon resonance and dual polarization interferometry equipment, and we maintain web sites that detail mutations in the complement and coagulation proteins. We are also involved with NMR and crystallographic studies as appropriate.

Bioinformatics

We have developed interactive websites that summarise information on mutations in the complement proteins (factor H, factor I and membrane cofactor protein) and the coagulation proteins (factor IX and factor XI).

We have also developed a further website based on the vitamin K-dependent coagulation proteases, however this is yet to be recovered following a server crash in May 2009.

Defects in Coagulation (FXI)

Defects in Coagulation (FIX)

Defects in Complement

CoagMDB

Professor Stephen Perkins

Professor Stephen Perkins obtained his BA in Chemistry and DPhil in Molecular Biophysics from Oxford University. He obtained EMBO and EMBL Fellowships to work at the ETH-Zurich and at EMBL-Grenoble. He was awarded a Lister Fellowship held at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Hammersmith, London.

Professor Perkins was then appointed to a Wellcome Trust Lecturership at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, and obtained a Personal Chair in 1998 at the same time as this merged with UCL. He moved to the main campus of UCL in 2002.

Profesoor Perkins has published over 200 papers, mostly in the field of structural immunology applied to the five human antibody classes and to the complement proteins of innate immunity.

Teaching

Professor Perkins is course organiser for two General Biochemistry undergraduate courses termed BIOC2003 "Essential Molecular Biology" and BIOC2002 "Essential Protein Structure and Function" for second year undergraduates, and contributes tutorials for other undergraduate courses. He is also Chair of the Departmental Examinations Board.

Outside UCL, he runs training courses for the CCP-SAS software packages.

All teaching material and downloadable files for under-graduates are located in the UCL Moodle pages. If you are a UCL student, please log into Moodle.

If, after consulting Moodle, you wish to make contact, teaching inquiries should be made in the first instance to hearing-assistant@ucl.ac.uk

Selected Publications

Complete List of Publications: RPS Widget Placeholderhttps://research-reports.ucl.ac.uk/RPSDATA.SVC/pubs/SJPER24