Bárbara Abreu, PhD
Exploring the secrets of life using computational biology and biophysics.
Currently a research fellow in the Stansfeld Lab at the University of Warwick, UK.
E-mail: barbara.abreu@warwick.ac.uk
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Research Interests:
- Molecular modelling and simulation of membrane proteins (and every other protein!).
- Study of protein conformational changes and protein-ligand binding, including free-energy calculations.
Current Research:
- Modelling systems of protein isolation and purification, including nanodiscs, micelles and polymer disks (such as SMALPed disks).
- Studying the function of E.coli PBP3 and the mechanism of insertion mutants.
- Modelling protein-ligand interactions on bacterial transporters.
Publications:
- Zhang, Z.; Abreu, B.; Brothwood, J.L.; Sims, M.J.; Lyons, J.F; Munck,J.M.; Hindley C.J. The identification of functional regions of MEK1 using CRISPR tiling screens, Nature Communications Biology, 2025,8,656, https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-07966-4
- Abreu, B., Cruz, C., Oliveira, A. S., Soares, C., ATP hydrolysis and nucleotide exit enhance maltose translocation in the MalFGK2E importer, Scientific Reports, 2021, 11, 1059, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89556-y
- Abreu, B.; Lopes, E. F.; Oliveira, A. S. F.; Soares, C. M. The mutation F508del disturbs the dynamics of the nucleotide binding domains of CFTR before and after ATP hydrolysis, Proteins Struct. Funct. Bioinforma. 2019, 88, 113, https://doi.org/10.1002/prot.25776
- Kaur, H.; Abreu, B.; Akhmetzyanov, D.; Lakatos-Karoly, A.; Soares, C. M.; Prisner, T.; Glaubitz, C. Unexplored nucleotide binding modes for the ABC exporter MsbA. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140,14112, https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b06739
CV:
- Post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Warwick - Coventry, United Kingdom
- Sustaining Innovation Post-doctoral Researcher at Astex Pharmaceuticals - Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Ph.D. in Computational Biophysics (Ph.D. program in Molecular Biosciences) at ITQB-NOVA, University Nova of Lisbon - Lisbon, Portugal
- M.Sc. in Medicinal Chemistry at University of Minho - Braga, Portugal
- B.Sc. in Biochemistry at University of Minho - Braga, Portugal