Research group David Drew's research group

The Drew group investigates the alternating-access mechanism of solute transporters for sugars and ions. These transporters are critical to cell homeostasis and their dysfunction is associated with human diseases, such as cancer and diabetes.


Structure and mechanism of solute carrier transporters

Solute carrier transporters (SLCs) transporters are the targets for many therapeutics and they often play a major role in drug pharmacokinetics. Understanding the mechanisms by which SLC transporters shuttle and move ions, drugs, and natural compounds across membranes is of fundamental importance. Because of the technical difficulties in working with membrane proteins our mechanistic understanding is very limited. The goal of my research is to investigate the alternating-access mechanism of solute transporters for sugars and ions, which are critical to cell homeostasis and their dysfunction is associated with human diseases, such as cancer and diabetes. To achieve this we combine crystal and cryo EM structures with biochemical and biophysical techniques. These goals are facilitated by the development of novel methods to aid functional and structural investigation of SLC transporters.

Popular descriptions of our work on transporters 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwW86e3tFv4

https://www.svd.se/genombrott-kan-leda-till-ny-malariamedicin

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00148-8

This research group has no members.

There are no research project connections.