Zakir Tnimov
Zakir Tnimov is a second year postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Kirill Alexandrov group at Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), UQ. His current main project involves development and application of new methods for site-selective labelling of peptides and proteins in cell-free translation systems. This includes labelling of proteins with fluorophores by (1) incorporation of unnatural aminoacids or (2) using intein-mediated protein trans-splicing. Zakir has obtained his University degree in Biochemistry in 2005 following his Master degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2007. At this stage Zakir was trying to prepare thermostable RNA polymerase of E.coli phage Qbeta by exchanging its subunits with ones from microorganism T.thermophilus. Then he joined group of Kirill Alexandrov in Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology (Dortmund, Germany) where he was studying by means of biophysics a RhoGDI – one of the main regulators of Rho GTPase activity in cell. Between 2008 and 2012 Zakir was doing his PhD in Alexandrov group (now moved to IMB, UQ). He has developed a mechanistic model of RhoGDI-mediated extraction of Rho proteins from the membranes, found a novel way of how RhoGDI might be involved in regulation of Rho proteins in the cell and demonstrated its novel role of regulation of Rho proteins prenylation in vitro. During this time he was also studying enzymatic properties of novel isoprenoid analogues that was synthesized in the group of Prof. Herbert Waldmann (MPI, Dortmund). Within a collaboration with Prof. Robert Capon (IMB) he explored binding properties of a novel potential pharmaceutical: macrolide from Australian marine actinomycete that was associating with FKBP12 (mTOR pathway). Also, in collaboration with Prof. Jenny Martin (IMB) Zakir studied in details the role of Syntaxin4 C-terminal membrane anchor in Munc18c-mediated SNARE complex assembly.
Currently, he is looking forward to pursue his research interests in the field synthetic biology, protein engineering and chemical biology at new place.
Email: z.tnimov@uq.edu.au, website: http://syntheticscience.blogspot.com.au/
Tel Lab: +61 7 334 62172, Mobile: +61 4 6868 456
Abstracts this author is presenting: