David Komander, who undertook his PhD research with Dario Alessi and Daan van Aalten, has been appointed to a Group Leader position at LMB. During his time in Dundee (2002-2005), David undertook elegant structural analysis of the PDK1 kinase that revealed great insight into how this enzyme functioned and was regulated. His work is still of great use to the pharmaceutical companies searching for PDK1 inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. David is currently working as a postdoc in David Barford's laboratory in the Institute of Cancer Research, where he has unravelled the structure of several enzymes that regulate the ubiquitination of proteins in cells.

David will start his laboratory on the 1st of June in the Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry (PNAC) division at LMB. This is the division where Fred Sanger worked and developed the methodology to sequence proteins and DNA, for which he was awarded two Nobel prizes. It is also the Division where Cesar Milstein and Georges Koehler invented monoclonal antibodies! David's programme will be entitled 'Specificity in the ubiquitin system'. In particular he wishes to investigate novel forms of ubiquitination and understand how proteins can distinguish between different forms of polyubiquitin chains.

David has two postdoctoral positions available. Anyone interested in these please email David at dkomander@mac.com