Hello Richard Hopkinson - Guest Researcher with the Chemistry of Life theme

Richard Hopkinson is Associate Professor in Chemical Biology, at the Institute for Structural and Chemical Biology, University of Leicester.

Richard Hopkinson is Associate Professor in Chemical Biology, at the Institute for Structural and Chemical Biology, LISCB, University of Leicester. He is staying at LINXS as a Guest Researcher for two months, from 1st of May to 30th of June, contributing to the Chemistry of Life theme.

In this short interview, you can read about what attracted him to LINXS, about his research interests, and what he hopes to gain out his stay.

What attracted you to LINXS?

I am very much excited by the opportunities LINXS provides for supporting collaborative science at the chemistry-biology interface. As a biological chemist, such collaboration is crucial for my own research but it also underpins all research being conducted at the Leicester Institute of Structural and Chemical Biology (LISCB). I am therefore looking forward to establishing collaborations during my visit.    

What will do you within the theme?

I hope to meet with members of our ChemLife theme both informally and hopefully through lab visits and group meetings. Through these interactions, I will learn more about the research going on in the LINXS community, while I will also help disseminate the varied research interests of LISCB members. I will then look to identify areas of complementary interest and skills, and will ultimately assist in setting up meetings with relevant partners.    

What do you hope to gain from your stay?

My goal is to be the initiator of new collaborative research projects between ChemLife members. Hopefully these collaborations will lead to long-term working relationships that will be supported by grants and studentships etc. On an individual level, I am also excited to meet new researchers and to experience life in Lund. 

What are your research interests?

My research is focused on defining the biology and biomedical potential of reactive small molecules. In particular, I am interested in studying the complex biochemistry and biology of aldehydes, which are often environmental pollutants and human metabolites. Given their reactivity, aldehydes can react with proteins and nucleic acids to affect their functions, leading to genotoxicity at high concentrations but also to regulatory roles. However, the scope of aldehyde biology is largely unknown. In my group, we use bespoke chemical biology tools as well as chemical insight gained from NMR and structural analyses to characterise the mechanisms underpinning aldehyde biology.

Ultimately, we hope to treat aldehyde-mediated disease. While we have not conducted much structural biology in Leicester, I am very keen to investigate whether aldehyde-derived protein and DNA/RNA adducts could be monitored using X-ray and/or neutron diffraction. I am also interested in solving structures of aldehyde-metabolising enzymes, of which many are biomedical targets.  

How would you like LINXS to support you?

I am very keen to meet as many people as possible so please say hello. I am very happy to speak to everyone about any research idea, even if they are out of my research area or are preliminary. I am also more than happy to give talks about my or LISCB research.