My lab’s main interests have been in transmission electron microscopy and the image-processing technique of single particle analysis, as well as indulging in various X-ray crystallography projects. I spent over a decade as a hands-on wet-lab biochemist (1992-2007; 2012), and have been trained in 15+ different biochemical and biophysical techniques, in parallel with those of structural biology.
Applying this expertise, as well as guiding and training others, there were 5 main research programmes, as showcased on this website.
My career as a scientist grew from the University degrees (1993, B.Sc. Hons 2(i) in Biochemistry, Imperial College, University of London; 1997, Ph.D. “Structural Characterisation of Photosystem II”, University of London; 1997, Diploma of Imperial College) and support from The Royal Society (University Research Fellowship(s), 2001-2012) with additional government BBSRC council funding and also Japan's JST/CREST initiative. The primary research focus was always aimed at revealing novel photosynthetic structures. Typically these structures are found to be 20 to 40 nm in diameter (500 to 3,000 kDa in molecular mass) and we calculated their structures to resolutions of between 15 to 30 Å. Of significance are the 2D/3D structures of functionally intact, previously membrane-bound (solubilised) photosystem reaction centres, retaining their light-harvesting antennae. A light harvesting protein (C-phycocyanin) was resolved to 1.45 Å resolution by X-ray crystallography and several others to similar high resolution (c/f .pdb entries at the RCSB). Many such structures have been reported, isolated from a variety of organisms. We hope these 2D/3D structural maps will aid future research, elsewhere, in the design of artificial photosynthesis/renewable energy technologies.
Separately, I investigated macromolecules involved in bacterial pathogenesis, neurotoxicity, spermatogenesis and Alzheimer's disease.
Our research focus shifted to engage in those proteins required for the assembly, repair or regulation of the photosystems and their associated light harvesting assemblies, with a strong element of computational chemistry & biology. A continued interest was in other fields, such as light-sensing (phytochrome) and iron metabolism (ferritin). The electron microscope, either the transmission or scanning variant, is a wonderful tool and one may be drawn into any project, not necessarily photosynthetic, in the pursuit of serendipity; I was a management group member for Queen Mary’s NanoVision microscopy centre (2007-2020). For five years Jon was an Associate Editor of the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences (01/2005 to 12/2009) and he acted as a consultant in the revision of the IBID Press (Biology & Chemistry) textbooks (Hodder, ed. C. Talbot) of the International Baccalaureate (2014-2020). For the scientific community I frequently refereed (inter(national)) grants and papers related to the above core interests.