Introduction
Christopher Abell FRS FRSC FMedSci (born 11 November 1957) is a British biological chemist. As of 2016, he is Professor of Biological Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cambridge and Todd-Hamied Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. On his 2016 election to the Royal Society, the society described his research as having "changed the face of drug discovery."
Education
Abell was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, gaining an Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1979 followed by PhD on the topic of polyketide biosynthesis for research supervised by James Staunton in 1982.
Career and research
Abell held a research fellowship in the laboratory of David E. Cane at Brown University, Providence, USA, studying terpene biosynthesis (1982–83). In 1984, Abell joined the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cambridge, successively holding the positions of demonstrator, lecturer and reader in chemical biology, and becoming Professor in Biological Chemistry in 2002. He has held visiting professorships at the Australian National University in Canberra, University of Santiago de Compostela, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, and the Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse. He has been a fellow of Christ's College since 1986; and is the college's Todd-Hamied Fellow. In 2013 he was appointed the first Director of Postdoctoral Affairs at the University of Cambridge, and in 2016 was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research.
Abell has published over 200 papers. His research interests include vitamin and amino acid biosynthesis as targets for the rational design of antimicrobials; fragment-based approaches to enzyme inhibition; bacterial and plant riboswitches; reactions in microdroplets; and biological nanotechnology.
Commercial ventures
Abell is the co-founder of several companies. In 1999, he co-founded Astex Technology Ltd, which uses fragment-based drug discovery technology to discover cancer therapeutics. In 2001, he co-founded Akubio, which developed biosensors for detecting bacteria and viruses; it was acquired by Inverness Medical Innovations in 2008. In 2010, he co-founded Sphere Fluidics to develop microdroplet technology. In 2012 he co-founded Aqdot, a company developing a new microencapsulation technology.
Publications
- Ciulli, Alessio; Abell, Chris (2007). "Fragment-based approaches to enzyme inhibition". Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 18 (6): 489–496. doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2007.09.003. ISSN 0958-1669.
- Blundell, Tom L.; Jhoti, Harren; Abell, Chris (2002). "High-throughput crystallography for lead discovery in drug design". Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. 1 (1): 45–54. doi:10.1038/nrd706. ISSN 1474-1784.
- Fidalgo, LuisM.; Whyte, Graeme; Bratton, Daniel; Kaminski, ClemensF.; Abell, Chris; Huck, WilhelmT.S. (2008). "From Microdroplets to Microfluidics: Selective Emulsion Separation in Microfluidic Devices". Angewandte Chemie. 120 (11): 2072–2075. doi:10.1002/ange.200704903. ISSN 0044-8249.
- Huebner, A.; Srisa-Art, M.; Holt, D.; Abell, C.; Hollfelder, F.; deMello, A. J.; Edel, J. B. (2007). "Quantitative detection of protein expression in single cells using droplet microfluidics". Chemical Communications (12): 1218. doi:10.1039/b618570c. ISSN 1359-7345.
- Kerbarh, Olivier; Ciulli, Alessio; Chirgadze, Dimitri Y.; Blundell, Tom L.; Abell, Chris (2007). "Nucleophile Selectivity of Chorismate-Utilizing Enzymes". ChemBioChem. 8 (6): 622–624. doi:10.1002/cbic.200700019. ISSN 1439-4227.
- Howard, Nigel; Abell, Chris; Blakemore, Wendy; Chessari, Gianni; Congreve, Miles; Howard, Steven; Jhoti, Harren; Murray, Christopher W.; Seavers, Lisa C. A.; van Montfort, Rob L. M. (2006). "Application of Fragment Screening and Fragment Linking to the Discovery of Novel Thrombin Inhibitors†". Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 49 (4): 1346–1355. doi:10.1021/jm050850v. ISSN 0022-2623.
- Bruckbauer, Andreas; Zhou, Dejian; Kang, Dae-Joon; Korchev, Yuri E.; Abell, Chris; Klenerman, David (2004). "An Addressable Antibody Nanoarray Produced on a Nanostructured Surface". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 126 (21): 6508–6509. doi:10.1021/ja0317426. ISSN 0002-7863.
- Bulloch, Esther M. M.; Jones, Michelle A.; Parker, Emily J.; Osborne, Andrew P.; Stephens, Elaine; Davies, Gareth M.; Coggins, John R.; Abell, Chris (2004). "Identification of 4-Amino-4-deoxychorismate Synthase as the Molecular Target for the Antimicrobial Action of (6S)-6-Fluoroshikimate". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 126 (32): 9912–9913. doi:10.1021/ja048312f. ISSN 0002-7863.
- Webb, Michael E.; Stephens, Elaine; Smith, Alison G.; Abell, Chris (2003). "Rapid screening by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry to probe binding specificity at enzyme active sites". Chemical Communications (19): 2416. doi:10.1039/b308182f. ISSN 1359-7345.
- Cooper, Matthew A.; Dultsev, Fedor N.; Minson, Tony; Ostanin, Victor P.; Abell, Chris; Klenerman, David (2001). "Direct and sensitive detection of a human virus by rupture event scanning". Nature Biotechnology. 19 (9): 833–837. doi:10.1038/nbt0901-833. ISSN 1087-0156.
- Albert, Armando; Dhanaraj, Venugopal; Genschel, Ulrich; Khan, Ghalib; Ramjee, Manoj K.; Pulido, Rosaline; Sibanda, B. Lynn; Delft, Frank von; Witty, Michael; Blundell, Tom L.; Smith, Alison G.; Abell, Chris (1998). "Crystal structure of aspartate decarboxylase at 2.2 Å resolution provides evidence for an ester in protein self–processing". Nature Structural Biology. 5 (4): 289–293. doi:10.1038/nsb0498-289. ISSN 1072-8368.
- Mahapatro, Mrinal; Gibson, Christopher; Abell, Chris; Rayment, Trevor (2003). "Chiral discrimination of basic and hydrophobic molecules by chemical force spectroscopy". Ultramicroscopy. 97 (1-4): 297–301. doi:10.1016/S0304-3991(03)00055-X. ISSN 0304-3991.
Awards and honours
His awards include a Research Fellowship at King's College, Cambridge, the ICI Prize in Organic Chemistry in 1992, the Hickinbottom Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a Yamada Science Foundation Award. In 2008 he was the MIT Novartis Lecturer, and in 2011 was a BIC International Fellow at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2012 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016.