Aidan Meekings

Biography

My research involves X-ray crystallography as well as time-resolved X-ray crystallography not only to characterise copper binding proteins, but also to capture the structures of these proteins mid-reaction using time points as slow as microseconds. I work on small chitin binding copper proteins called Lytic Polysaccaride Monooxygrenases (LPMO), which bind a single copper ion to carry out the redox reaction for the oxidation and cleavage of the C1/C4 bonds in long chain sugars. These LPMOs reside in S.lividans, some of which exist as a ridid LPMO while others exists a s a full length LPMO containing both a flexible linker as well as a carbohydrate-binding module (CBM). I use techniques such as Small-angle X-ray Scattering to determine the structure of these flexible LPMOs as flexibility hinders crystallisation. I culture ammonia oxidising archaea (AOA) from soil for whole-genome sequence and phylogenetic analysis to characterise a potentially novel species of AOA.

Qualifications

• Biomedical Science (BSc) Anglia Ruskin University (2020)

• Biotechnolgy (MSc) University of Essex (2021)

Thesis