Alex Cook

Alex joined the lab as a postdoctoral research associate in June 2020. He is fascinated by the evolutionary battle that has taken place between humans and parasitic African trypanosome species, which are the causes of human sleeping sickness. He uses structural biology methods to visualise how trypanosome molecules interact with the human immune system. From this, he hopes to shed light on how humans resist trypanosome infection, and how some trypansome species overcome human immunity. His first paper shows how the trypanosome C3 receptor, ISG65 binds to the TED domain of C3b. His second paper followed up on this study with the cryoEM structure of ISG65 bound to the complete C3b molecule, giving clues about how ISG65 might inactivate complement.

Before joining the lab, Alex carried out an MRC funded PhD at Birkbeck University in London, under the supervision of Carolyn Moores and Maya Topf. There, he used 3D cryo-electron microscopy visualise the P. falciparum kinesin-5 motor protein bound to microtubules.

Cook, A.D., Carrington, M.^*and Higgins, M.K.^* (2024) Molecular mechanism of complement inhibition by the trypanosome receptor ISG65. eLife 12 RP88960

Cook, A.D., Carrington, M.* and Higgins, M.K.* (2023) Trypanosomes and complement: more than one way to die? Trends in Parasitology 39 1014

Macleod, O.J.⁺, Cook, A.D.⁺, Webb, H., Crow, M., Burns, R., Redpath, M., Seisenberger, S., Trevor, C.E., Peacock, L., Schwede, A., Kimblin, N., Francisco, A.F., Pepperl., Rust, S., Voorheis, P., Gibson, W., Taylor, M.C., Higgins, M.K.^* and Carrington, M.^*(2022) Invariant surface glycoprotein 65 of Trypanosoma brucei is a complement C3 receptor.Nature Communications 13 5085 (⁺ equal contribution, * joint corresponding)

Cook, A.D., Manka, S.W., Wang, S., Moores, C.A. and Atherton, J. A microtubule RELION-based pipeline for cryo-EM image processing. J. Struct. Biol. 209, (2020).

Peña, A., Sweeney, A., Cook, A.D., Topf, M. and Moores, C.A. Structure of Microtubule-Trapped Human Kinesin-5 and Its Mechanism of Inhibition Revealed Using Cryoelectron Microscopy. Structure 28, 450-457.e5 (2020).

Atherton, J., Luo, Y., Xiang, S., Yang, C., Rai, A., Jiang, K., Stangier, M., Vemu, A., Cook, A.D., Wang, S., Roll-Mecak, A., Steinmetz, M.O., Akhmanova, A., Baldus, M. and Moores, C.A. Structural determinants of microtubule minus end preference in CAMSAP CKK domains. Nat. Commun. 10, (2019).

Atherton, J., Yu, I-M., Cook, A.D., Muretta, J.M., Joseph, A., Major, J., Sourigues, Y., Clause, J., Topf, M., Rosenfeld, S.S., Houdusse, A. and Moores, C.A. The divergent mitotic kinesin MKLP2 exhibits atypical structure and mechanochemistry. Elife 6, (2017).

Spary, L.K., Al-Taei, S., Salimu, J., Cook, A.D., Ager, A., Watson, H.A., Clayton, A., Staffurth, J., Mason, M.D. and Tabi, Z. Enhancement of T Cell Responses as a Result of Synergy between Lower Doses of Radiation and T Cell Stimulation. J. Immunol. 192, 3101–3110 (2014).