Gene regulation grant awarded

Tue, Feb 2, 2010

A £440k grant to study the structural basis of gene regulation in bacteria has been won by Professor Geoff Kneale and Dr John McGeehan of the Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Portsmouth.

Awarded by the Biotechnology and Biomedical Research Council (BBSRC), the grant will advance the understanding of horizontal gene transfer in bacterial communities, and provide new insights into novel mechanisms of DNA sequence recognition by gene regulatory proteins.

The spread of bacterial resistance to existing antibiotics represents a major health risk; in the longer term, this research could underpin the development of a novel class of anti-bacterial drugs.

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