Duer Research Group

Biological and biomedical chemistry research group in the Dept of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, UK

Determining atomic-level structures in collagenous tissues (in particular, bone, cartilage and vascular tissue) using a combination of physical methods. Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) is our primary tool. Solid-state NMR spectra give signals from e. g. 13C nuclei, that are naturally present in all our tissues, with the frequency of the signal depending on the exact environment of the 13C nucleus / carbon atom in the tissue. More advanced ssNMR techniques allow the measurement of distances between 13C nuclei (and other NMR-active nuclei), and so in principle could lead to detailed molecular structures, but these methods require more than the naturally-occurring amount of 13C in a tissue. Accordingly, much of our recent work has focussed on introducing higher levels of 13C into native tissues and tissues grown in cell culture. We are now moving forward to use these tools to determine how tissues change at the atomic level as a result of disease, such as atherosclerosis (funded by the British Heart Foundation), diabetes (funded by the MRC) and cancer, as well as fundamental work to determine details of the molecular structure of collagen IN NATIVE TISSUES (funded by BBSRC)