Satpal Virdee

Satpal received his undergraduate degree in Computer-aided chemistry from the University of Surrey in 2000 and also spent an industrial training year working Pfizer Global Research and Development. He then undertook a PhD project working with Gabriel Waksman FRS at Birkbeck College, London in 2004. He studied phosphopeptide recognition by SH2 domains and used chemical protein semisynthesis to develop semisynthetic SH2 domains with rewired specificity. He then joined Jason Chin's laboratory at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge where he pioneered the genetically-directed synthesis of atypical ubiquitin chains and ubiquitin conjugates. Working closely with David Komander at the LMB, he went on to solve the crystal structure of the Lys6 linked ubiquitin chain and identified a deubiquitinase which is specific for atypical linkages. Satpal started his independent lab at the University of Dundee in 2011 and in 2016 obtained tenure. Satpal’s research involves the development and application of chemical biological technologies to study ubiquitin E3 ligases and non-lysine ubiquitination.