Dr Roger Williams FRS FMedSci
Group Leader
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Elected Fellow 2010
structural biology, lipid second messenger signalling, intracellular sorting, enzymology, drug discovery, autophagy, lipid kinases
Roger Williams is Director of Studies at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. His group determined the first structures of PI3 Kinasess and the complexes they form with inhibitors and the small G protein Ras. This laid the foundation for isoform-specific PI3 Kinase inhibitors which are currently in clinical trials. His work also established the structural mechanism by which one common class of mutations involved in human cancers leads to up-regulation of the PI3 kinase pathway. Williams has helped elucidate the structural biology of the ESCRT-I, -II and –III complexes that sort ubiquitinated membrane proteins to lysosomes for destruction.