Frankel

Welcome to the Frankel Group

We are interested in the forces that hold together biological systems. For example the forces that hold together cancer cells in a tumor and the forces that bind drugs to a cell surface. The misfiring of these biological interactions can lead to,or be a result of disease. Thus the ultimate goal of our research is to inform the development of disease treatments based on knowledge of biological interactions. Work is highly interdisciplinary involving physics, engineering, biomedicine and chemistry. Specifically we are looking at the following systems:

▪. Unfolding Disease One Molecule at a Time - Proteins involved in disease such as HIV, cancer and arthritis are potential therapeutic targets. Their unfolding and self assembly behaviour is examined at the single molecule level revealing insight into their function.

▪. Determining the Forces that Hold Cancer Cells Together- We examine the role of various proteins in metastasis and tumor growth

▪. Manipulating Chemical and Biological Forces to Build an Artificial Cell - A bottom up approach to assembling an artificial cell.

▪. Exploring the Surface of Cancer Cells - The cancer cell surface contains a myriad of potential targets for drugs. In this work we map interactions at the cell surface including both nano particle/cell and drug/cell interactions.

▪. Cyberplasm - Building a swimmming bio hybrid microrobot

We work at the interface between chemistry, biology and physics and employ both experimental and theoretical approaches. If you are interested in studying challenging systems involving complexity and are not afraid of inter-disciplinary work please don’t hesitate to contact me. Dr. Daniel Frankel : d.j.frankel@newcastle.ac.uk