About the speaker:

Dr. Allen M. Orville is a Wellcome Investigator, Royal Society Wolfson Fellow, and Group Leader of the XFEL Hub at Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire UK. He has roughly equal training in spectroscopy and macromolecular crystallography (MX), and often applies both methods to the same samples. This approach yields correlated electronic and atomic structures of macromolecules and supports unparalleled mechanistic insights. The Orville group uses both synchrotron and X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) sources for serial MX strategies that exploit microcrystal slurries. His research includes time-resolve studies ranging from femtoseconds through seconds with data collected at XFELs located in the USA, Japan, Korea, Germany or Switzerland. To study reactions from microseconds through seconds, the group exploits synchrotron sources including Diamond Light Source beamlines I24 and VMXi. Some current research topics include:

Metalloenzymes that activate O2 and create reactive intermediates such as Fe(IV)=O to catalyse some of the most energetically challenging reactions in biology,
(Metallo)Enzymes that cleave beta-lactam antibiotics and thereby provide antimicrobial resistance to a range of human pathogens,
Proteases critical to viral life cycles, including SARS-CoV-2 with potential impact on antiviral drug discovery
Light-activated systems that respond to and/or catalyse reactions that are ultimately driven by visible light photons, and
Methods development ranging from sample preparation to reaction initiation strategies to data collection/processing and to interpretation of time-resolved datasets from macromolecular systems at physiological temperature that are often engaged in catalysis/function.

IBP Network Webinar - Dr Allen Orville