About me

I completed my undergraduate programme in Biological Sciences in 2022. During my final year project, I studied the interaction of proteins and small molecules, which developed my interest in academia. Since I was unsure as to what skill sets, areas of research and or programme type I wanted to pursue, I decided to take a year to work as a lab technician in a multidisciplinary lab and explore as many options as possible. My time as a technician served the purpose I hoped it would and I knew I wanted to spend the next few years understanding how interactions at a molecular level lead to system and organism-wide changes we can observe. This led to me finding my place studying the interactions of proteins at the single-molecule level to improve our understanding of how bacterial plasmids are segregated and ultimately how antibiotic resistance is passed down.

My Project

Antibiotic resistance is a prevalent and growing threat to human health and finding new ways to target it is essential. Since the proteins that encode for antibiotic resistance are typically found on plasmids, extra-chromosomal DNA, studying how these plasmids are inherited could be pivotal in developing new ways to treat resistant strains of bacteria. Using the bacterial TP228 plasmid partitioning system, my project aims to uncover how the system functions to successfully transport the low-copy number plasmid during reproduction. The project focuses on studying the interactions between two proteins encoded by the partitioning cassette, ParF and ParG. I will also study the interaction between these proteins and the DNA they bind specifically and non-specifically. Single-molecule biophysics techniques will be key to understanding this system and one of the techniques I will be using is FRET. By improving our understanding of plasmid partitioning we can find potential new targets to treat antibiotic resistance.

Connect

Twitter: https://twitter.com/abdul_adenopo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abdulkabir-adenopo-14495b176/