Membrane transport is essential for the growth, homeostasis and defence of cells. No better evidence of this fact is the considerable proportion of the genome devoted to membrane bound proteins. However, disruption of membrane transport often contributes to development, or progression, of many disease states. In addition, perturbations in membrane transport processes frequently contribute to the failure of many therapeutic strategies. Our research interests focus on understanding the contributions of membrane transport processes to disease and overcoming their impact in treating disease. The expertise of our research team is in the biochemical pharmacology of membrane transporters and generating structural information on these proteins. As shown by the diagram opposite, our strategy utilises the triad of structural, functional and pharmacological endeavours. The laboratory has assembled the infrastructure and considerable expertise in enabling us to work within this triad. We have five main streams of research, so click on the appropriate one and see more details on each of the major projects that we deal with:

• Contributions of drug efflux pumps to chemotherapy resistance in cancer.
• Do faulty retinal transport processes underpin visual disorders?
• Molecular mechanisms of transporters conferring resistance to chemotherapy of malaria
• Adaptive changes to bioenergetic metabolism and nutrient utilisation in solid tumours.
• The contributions of ABC transporters to amyloid protein clearance from the CNS.