Dr Lorena Varela-Alvarez

Dr. Varela-Alvarez graduated in Chemistry at the University of Granada in 2005, where she conducted her PhD research from 2006 to 2010 in the laboratory of Prof. Francisco Conejro-Lara and Dr. Ana I. Azuaga-Fortes. During her PhD, Dr. Varela-Alvarez studied the kinetic, structural and thermodynamic determinants of amyloid fibril formation by the alpha spectrin SH3 domain using molecular biology tools, biophysics and structural biology techniques. During this period, she was awarded with an EMBO, a FEBS and a Spanish Ministry of Sciences short-term fellowships to develop different parts of her research project in collaboration with Dr. Fabrizio Chiti in Florence, Italy, Prof. André Matagne in Liege, Belgium and with Prof. Nico van Nuland in Brussels, Belgium, respectively.
In 2011 she obtained a Spanish Ministry of Sciences postdoctoral fellowship to work in Prof. Christina Redfield laboratory at the University of Oxford on the characterisation of the structure of the human alpha-lactalbumin molten globule by NMR. Subsequently, in 2014, Dr. Lorena-Varela was awarded a Marie Curie IEF fellowship to investigate the structural factors governing the activity and function of the CheY3 and CheY6 response regulator proteins from R. sphaeroides.
Dr. Varela-Alvarez joined the School of Biosciences in July 2017 as a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Research Associate, where her research focuses in a structural, functional and drug binding study of the Chloride intracellular channel CLIC1.

The main focus of Dr Varela-Alvarez scientific career is the study of the structure, dynamics and interactions of proteins involved in important biological processes using traditional and state-of-the-art NMR methods, X-ray crystallography and Cryo Electron microscopy complemented with other biophysical and biochemical tools.
Specifically, Dr Varela-Alvarez is studying the Chloride Intracellular Channel 1 (CLIC1). The Chloride intracellular channel (CLIC) family is a recently identified class of chloride ion channel proteins that can exist both as cytoplasmic soluble proteins and as integral membrane elements with ion channel activity. However, little is known about the structural transition between the two forms and the factors governing such process. CLIC1 has been directly implicated in tumour development and identified as a novel therapeutic target. Dr Varela-Alvarez main aim is to obtain mechanistic and structural information for this process that can be of great use for the development of conformation-specific pharmacological inhibitors and regulators that could lead to new avenues for cancer treatment.