Introducing new member of Bio2Q

We are excited to welcome Dr.  Augustinas Silale as a Jr. PI at Bio-2 Core of Bio2Q.

“Hello, Bio2Q community! My name is Augustinas (August) Silale. I am from Lithuania. I am delighted to join Bio2Q as a Jr. PI.

I read Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. My BA project was on fragment-based drug discovery in Prof Sir Tom Blundell’s group, where I got a taste for practical structural biology. I fell in love with membrane proteins during my MSci in Dr Ingo Greger’s group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK), where I worked on isolation of AMPA-type ionotropic glutamate receptors in complex with auxiliary subunits. I then went to the University of Oxford to pursue a Wellcome Trust-funded DPhil (PhD) with Prof Ben Berks and Prof Susan Lea, where I characterized the nuclease domain of a DNA-transporting membrane protein required for natural competence in bacteria. After my DPhil, I moved to Newcastle University to do a postdoc with Prof Bert van den Berg on the structural and functional characterisation of outer membrane transporters and their biogenesis in gut bacteria. I then did a second postdoc in Newcastle with Prof Tracy Palmer and Dr Elisabeth Lowe on bacterial cell envelope structures and glycan utilization.

At Bio2Q, I plan to build on my previous work using structural biology and complementary methods to characterise novel bacterial transporters; investigate gut microbe-microbe interactions arising from metabolic products of bacteria; and use machine-learning-driven protein engineering approaches to redesign proteins derived from gut bacteria to perform functions beneficial to human health. My work on the gut microbiome has so far focused on the microbe side, and I hope to put my research into broader biological context by collaborating with members of Bio2Q. I am very excited to join the Center, and I look forward to working with you all!”

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