Dr Lata Govada

Summary

A postdoctoral Research Associate of the protein crystallisation group in Computational and Systems Medicine.

Background

My initial qualifications are a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from University of Madras, India. Before moving to England I was in the teaching profession. To seek a career change and move into the field of research, I continued my academic pursuit and completed a honours degree in Biomedical Sciences from University of Greenwich prior to embarking on a PhD programme at Imperial College under Professors Naomi Chayen and John Squire.

Since successful completion of my PhD in 2006, I am working as a Post Doctoral Research Associate with Professor Naomi Chayen in Protein Crystallisation, developing new and improved methods to tackle the bottleneck of protein crystal growth.

Research Interests

Crystallisation  and 3-D structure determination of proteins and other biological molecules of medical interest including  cancer therapy,diabetes and heart related diseases for the purpose of rational drug design

- Applying phase diagrams to study crystal nucleation and growth

- Design of new, non-standard methodology for production of high-quality crystals for X-ray crystallography

- Design and application of smart and nano materials for crystallization

- Automation and miniaturisation to nano-scale crystallisation in high throughput mode

HIGHLIGHTs 

Invited speaker at TEDx Brixton

Secret lives of Crystals

Govada L, Leese HS, Saridakis E, et al., 2016, Exploring Carbon Nanomaterial Diversity for Nucleation of Protein Crystals, Scientific Reports, Vol:6, ISSN:2045-2322

Saridakis E, Khurshid S, Govada L, et al., 2011, Protein crystallization facilitated by molecularly imprinted polymers, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol:108, ISSN:0027-8424, Pages:11081-11086

Chan KLA, Govada L, Bill RM, et al., 2009, Attenuated Total Reflection-FT-IR Spectroscopic Imaging of Protein Crystallization, Analytical Chemistry, Vol:81, ISSN:0003-2700, Pages:3769-3775 (Cover)

 images displayed at the 'Crystal World' exhibition at the Royal Society. link

Research article featured in Nature Chemistry  in News and Views  (September 2011)

 Scientific imagery displayed at the Crystal World exhibition at the Royal Society (4 July – 5 October 2011).

  Image of the day in New Scientist  section of Cutting-edge science

 Research article evaluated in the top 2% in Faculty of 1000

Co-speaker at Soapbox Science, a public event, at Southbank organised by L'Oreal, the Royal Society and the Zoological Society of London

Outreach events including 

Chair: Nucleation Technology Session ICCBM 14, Huntsville Alabama USA

BookChapter:

Crystalization of Proteins: Principles and Methods in "Molecules: Nucleation, Aggregation and Crystallization.

Lata Govada (2009) Chapter 7: Ed Sedzik, J. and Riccio P. World Scientific Publishing

 Images displayed at the 'Crystal World' exhibition at the Royal Society. link

Active participation in  Outreach events including 'Science in the Headlines' 

AWARDS and External Positions

 President: International Organisation for Biological Crystallisation (IOBCr)

Vice President  IOBCr    2016-2018

Council Member IOBCr  2010- 2016

Carl Storm International Diversity Fellowship 2007, Gordon Research Conference.

British Council award to attend STiEX conference 2005, on issues of high technology and scientific development ,Mexico

Prize for best crystallization experimental technique-streak seeding at Recent Advances in Macromolecular Crystallization, France, 2005.

Best speaker at Alternative muscle club, Oxford university 2005

Young Scientist Award at International Conference on the Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules, Beijing 2004

Publications

Journals

More Publications