Biography
Dr Tim Nott is a Reader in Chemical Biology in the Department of Chemistry, King’s College London.
Tim received his PhD in Molecular Structure at the National Institute for Medical Research (UK). He then undertook postdoctoral work with Tony Pawson in Toronto (Canada) and, following the closure of the Pawson lab, with Andrew Baldwin at the University of Oxford. In 2016 Tim was awarded a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society and started his lab in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford.
In 2023, Tim moved to the Department of Chemistry at the King’s College London. His work focusses on understanding the chemical principles of cellular organisation.
Research Interests
A central organising principle of eukaryotic cells is the compartmentalisation of biochemical reactions by membrane boundaries into organelles. However, not all cellular processes are organised in this way. Cells also contain a variety of organelles and compartments such as nucleoli, Cajal bodies, P-granules, and nuage that lack a membrane boundary. These membraneless organelles form by the condensation protein and nucleic acid into liquid-like droplets, and can be readily observed with a light microscope. Membraneless organelles are predominantly associated with DNA and RNA biochemistry, and rapidly assemble and dissolve with changes to the cellular environment or cell cycle.
Research in Tim’s lab aims to explain how the droplet-like properties of membraneless organelles provide a general organising principle in cells, and understand why cells perform certain reactions inside them. To tackle these questions, his group uses tools and techniques from cell and structural biology, chemical biology, polymer theory, and bioinformatics.
Research Centres or Groups
Publications
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Surface tension measurement and calculation of model biomolecular condensates
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Membraneless organelles can melt nucleic acid duplexes and act as biomolecular filters