MRC PPU Postdoc Dr Adam Fletcher has been awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship by UKRI, to begin his independent research programme at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) at the University of Glasgow.

In the PPU, Adam works with Dr Satpal Virdee, using Satpal’s activity-based probe technologies to assign E3 ubiquitin ligases to signaling pathways in cells. Equipped with new tools and ideas from his time at the PPU, Adam will return to his studies of host-virus interaction to ask how pathogenic viruses hijack, evade or supress signalling pathways inside cells. Characterizing how viruses negotiate the tricky interior of the cell will suggest new strategies for drugging viruses by targeting the host rather than the virus, an exciting alternative to current antiviral strategies which ultimately fail by selecting for resistance.

Satpal Virdee said, “The award of this Future Leaders Fellowship to Adam is well-deserved. Adam appreciates the importance of interdisciplinary research and is now set to develop an extremely exciting research programme on host-virus biology. I have no doubt we can look forward to some significant discoveries from him”.

Through his fellowship, Adam will also strengthen ties between the CVR and the PPU, saying: “the PPU leads the way in decoding how proteins communicate and transmit messages within our cells. Unfortunately, viruses have already worked out how these pathways work, but this makes them fantastic tools to help us unpick basic cell biology. I believe the CVR and PPU have much to gain from working together”. This would build upon a collaboration already established between the CVR and PPU to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. With his fellowship, Adam will also build a research team and support the next generation of genre-hopping virologists. The fellowship runs for up to seven years. Adam will be advertising for enthusiastic PhD and Postdoc researchers in the near future and anyone interested is encouraged to contact Adam by email.