Chris Abell

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Chris Abell, MA, PhD (born 11 November 1957) is a British biological chemist.

Contents 1 Career and research 2 Awards 3 Companies 4 Selected publications 4.1 Reviews 4.2 Primary papers 5 External links

[edit] Career and research

As of 2008, Abell is a professor of Biological Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cambridge and Todd-Hamied Fellow of Christ's College. He has held visiting professorships at the Australian National University in Canberra, University of Santiago de Compostela and University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

His research interests include vitamin and amino acid biosynthesis as targets for the rational design of antimicrobials and antiparasitics; fragment-based approaches to enzyme inhibition; bacterial and plant riboswitches; reactions in microdroplets; and biological nanotechnology.

[edit] Awards

His awards include an ICI Prize in Organic Chemistry in 1992.

[edit] Companies

Abell is the co-founder of two companies: Astex Technology Ltd, which uses fragment-based drug discovery technology to discover cancer therapeutics, and Akubio, which develops biosensors for detecting bacteria and viruses.

[edit] Selected publications

[edit] Reviews

• Blundell TL, Jhoti H, Abell C (2002) High throughput crystallography for lead discovery in drug design Nat Rev Drug Discov 1: 45–54

[edit] Primary papers

• Albert A, Dhanaraj V, Genschel U, Khan G, Ramjee MK, Pulido R, Sibanda BL, von Delft F, Witty M, Blundell TL, Smith AG, Abell C. (1998) Crystal structure of aspartate decarboxylase at 2.2 Å resolution provides evidence for an ester in protein self-processing. Nat Struct Biol 5: 289–293
• Bruckbauer A, Zhou D, Kang DJ, Korchev YE, Abell C, Klenerman D (2004) An addressable antibody nanoarray produced on a nanofabricated surface J Am Chem Soc 126: 6508–6509
• Bulloch EM, Jones MA, Parker EJ, Osborne AP, Stephens E, Davies GM, Coggins JR, Abell C (2004) Identification of 4-amino-4-deoxychorismate synthase as the molecular target for the antimicrobial action of (6S)-6-fluoroshikimate J Am Chem Soc 126: 9912–9913
• Cooper MA, Dultsev FN, Minson T, Ostanin VP, Abell C, Klenerman K. (2001) Direct and sensitive detection of a human virus by rupture event scanning. Nat Biotechnol 19: 833–837
• Howard N, Abell C, Blakemore W, Carr R, Chessari G, Congreve M, Howard S, Jhoti H, Murray CW, Seavers LCA, van Montfort RLM (2006) The application of fragment screening and fragment linking to the discovery of novel thrombin inhibitors. J Med Chem 49: 1346–1355
• Webb ME, Stephens E, Smith AG, Abell C (2003) Rapid screening by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry to probe binding specificity at enzyme active sites Chem Commun Oct 7: 2416–2417

[edit] External links

• Abell group home page (University of Cambridge)
• Bridging the gap between protein chemistry and organic synthesis, Chem@Cam, 2004
• Biography at Astex