The Sanderson Group Homepage

Research in the Sanderson group focuses on the interactions of proteins and peptides with membranes.

Research Areas:

• Probing of the reactivity of drugs and other molecules with membrane lipids.
• Understanding the activity of membrane-active peptides and proteins.
• The development of new analytical methods for studying lipids and membranes, including Raman tweezing and linear dichroism spectroscopy.
• The development of model systems for studying the fundamental properties of the interactions between aromatic amino acids and phospholipids.

Recent Publications:

"Lysis of membrane lipids promoted by small organic molecules: Reactivity depends on structure but not lipophilicity", Hannah M. Britt, Aruna S. Prakash, Sanna Appleby, Jackie A. Mosely and John M. Sanderson, Sci. Adv., 2020, 6, eaaz8598.

"Far from Inert: Membrane Lipids Possess Intrinsic Reactivity That Has Consequences for Cell Biology", John M. Sanderson, BioEssays, 2020, e1900147.

"Lytic Reactions of Drugs with Lipid Membranes", Hannah M. Britt, Clara A. García-Herrero, Paul W. Denny, Jackie A. Mosely and John M. Sanderson, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 674–680.

"The Influence of Cholesterol on Melittin Lipidation in Neutral Membranes", Hannah M. Britt, Jackie A. Mosely and John M. Sanderson, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2019, 21, 631–640.

"The Association of Defensin HNP-2 with Negatively Charged Membranes: A Combined Fluorescence and Linear Dichroism Study", Catherine J. Pridmore, Alison Rodger and John M. Sanderson, Biochim. Biophys. Acta - Biomembr., 2016, 1858, 892–903.

Society Membership:

Member of the British Biophysical Society (committee member), Biophysical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).