New BBSRC grant on RiPPs

Christos Pliotas has been awarded an £1.2m BBSRC grant, jointly with researchers from Glasgow (Koehnke and Byron) for the project “Deciphering complex machineries that produce ribosomally synthesised natural products”. Leeds’ fund share worth of £600k will be used to investigate two protein complexes involved in the biosynthesis of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs), using state-of-the art techniques, including PELDOR (EPR National facilities in Manchester) and Mass Spectrometry (Frank Sobott, Leeds). RiPPs are natural products made by many different types of cells and display a wide variety of promising bioactivities, including anti-viral, anti-tumor and antibiotic. As a result of their manifold bioactivities, a variety of RiPP derivatives are currently undergoing therapeutic evaluation and RiPPs are the focus of many biotech start-up companies whose aim is to try to harness them as medicines of the future. This collaboration, bringing together researchers from Leeds and Glasgow will enable a strategic partnership between these two Universities and create opportunities for biotechnological exploitation of RiPPs.