Pablo Sobrado - England

What I Did

This initiative provided funds for me to travel to London, England and establish partnerships with several scientists there. While there, I met with Dr. Luiz P. Carvalho, an expert in Mycobacteria metabolomics, and was able to tour his laboratory and the facilities at the Francis Crick Institute. My group works on the identification of small molecules that inhibit iron acquisition in Mycobacteria and Dr. Carvalho and I discussed the possibility of working together to test compounds with the highest activity against iron acquisition in his laboratory by looking for changes in the metabolome.

I also met with Dr. Peter McCormick from Queen Mary University of London. My discussion with Dr. McCormick focused on the materials and techniques that we have in our College at the VT Center for Drug Discovery Screening Laboratory (VTCDD). Dr. McCormick studies G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and he has several assays that can be used to screen libraries to identify potential inhibitors that I was interested in learning.

I also met with Dr. Lesley Howell, who is also a faculty member at Queen Mary University. Dr. Howell recently developed an assay to identify compounds that target protein-protein interactions. We will soon receive reagents from these professors to screen the libraries available at the VTCDDSL to identify small molecules that block protein-protein interactions.

My laboratory was able to establish collaborations with all three of the groups I met with in the UK. A short-term outcome of this trip will be publication(s) of the characterizations of compounds identified in the screening assays mentioned above. A long-term outcome is the possibility of developing and submitting grants collaboratively.