Biography
Doryen Bubeck has recently joined Imperial College’s Division of Molecular Biosciences as a new lecturer in Three Dimensional Cryo-Electron Microscopy. Her research adopts an integrated structural approach to investigate the role of membrane proteins in host-pathogen interactions. Doryen received her PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University where she used cryo-EM to investigate the cell entry mechanism of poliovirus. As an EMBO postdoctoral fellow and Cancer Research Institute Fellow at the University of Oxford, Doryen continued to explore the structures of membrane proteins, focusing on the complement immune pathway.
A recent highlight (Bubeck et al., Cell Rep. 2012) is the discovery that complement components associate through a sideways alignment of their central MAC-perforin domains (MACPF). These results provide a structural framework for understanding the complex protein associations underlying activation of this innate immune effector. At Imperial, she aims to investigate how membrane attack complex (MAC) pore formation is controlled, a process important for fighting infections and preventing complement-mediated tissue damage.