About me

I completed my BSc (Hons) in Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the University of Dundee. Though initially enrolling on a biomedical science degree, I later specialised into BC&DD to better fit my interests. Through my undergrad I completed multiple summer placements in both biology and chemistry laboratories. In my final year my honours project was related to antibiotic resistance and medicinal chemistry. My experiences in undergrad led me to apply for my current project at York. My experience in antibacterial drug discovery research and my desire to have a project that involved both chemistry and biology lab work led me to apply for my interdisciplinary project that is looking at specific cell structures involved in the pathogenicity of bacteria.

My Project

Wall teichoic acids (WTAs) are glycoconjugates which are covalently anchored into the peptidoglycan layer of Gram-positive cell walls. WTAs play important roles in multiple functions of the cell including morphology, surface adhesion, cell division and pathogenicity. The importance of these glycoconjugates and their role in pathogenicity of bacteria makes them possible therapeutic targets for antibacterial drug discovery. Following a highly conserved linkage unit anchored into the peptidoglycan layer comes a long polyol repeating unit main chain. These repeat units differ between species, but I am specifically interested in those which contain the pentose alcohol ribitol-5-phosphate (Rbo5P). My project aims to address the current lack of chemical tools available to study these structures containing Rbo5P and their biosynthetic pathway. I aim to do this by utilising Rbo5P derived chemical probes and metabolic labelling in tandem with super-resolution microscopy to develop a super-resolution imaging platform for WTAs, allowing us to study WTA distribution, uptake, composition and polymer length for example. I will then use this imaging platform to characterise novel inhibitors for specific enzymes in the WTA biosynthetic pathway and study how interfering with steps in the biosynthetic pathway alters these characteristics.

Connect

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-mcneil-6577ab1b5/