Clinton Lau
I got my first lab experience after my undergraduate third year - a summer internship spent purifying and crystallising proteins in the lab of Martin Stacey, University of Leeds. At the start of this internship, Martin mentioned to me that accountancy would be a lucrative career to consider after undergraduate. By the end, he told me I should consider a career in scientific research. I progressed to solve my first protein structure in my fourth year undergraduate project with Matt Higgins the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford. This cemented my interest in using structural biology to answer mechanistic questions. I carried this interest into my DPhil, staying in Matt's lab, solving the structure of malarial surface protein PfEMP1 with one of its human ligands, EPCR. I also acquired the biochemical and biophysical skills to test the hypotheses generated by our structural information. I then completed an extensive postdoc with Andrew Carter. Here I joined the booming cryo-EM userbase, developing workflows and techniques to push the resolution of distal parts of the large dynein-dynactin-cargo adaptor complex. I also gained skills in studying dynein's motility using single molecule TIRF assays, and experimented extensively with AlphaFold2 upon its release.
Early in my postdoc, I became interested in how the cytoskeletal proteins were used in diverse organisms, in particular in the malaria parasite. To investigate this, I secured a Wellcome Trust Career Development Award in 2022, setting up my lab in November of that year.
I support open science. During my postdoc, we benefitted from sharing unpublished data with others, improving our science and removed the fear of being scooped. I am happy to discuss ongoing projects with those interested, and have contributed data to others in the past. I also have benefitted from formal and informal mentorship at multiple stages during my career, and I am keen to pay it forward to help with the development of my lab members and others. I am committed to lead a diverse and inclusive lab, fostering a supportive and positive research environment where we can thrive.
CV
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