Our lab is established at the University of Ioannina Medical School, Laboratory of Biological Chemistry. The Laboratory belongs to the Clinical and Functional Sciences Division and shares an open collaboration with the Biomedical Research Institute (FORTH-BRI).
Our research team focuses on the elucidation of structure-function relationships in membrane transport proteins. We use model prokaryotic systems to characterize and study transporters as prototypes for evolutionarily broad families with biomedical or environmental significance. We use Cys-scanning and site-directed alkylation techniques in cells, membrane vesicles, or appropriate detergent solutions after overexpression and purification in E. coli K-12. We are interested in combining our analysis with bioinformatic and genome mining approaches to address questions on the evolution and evolvability of substrate specificity in such proteins. Our current work focuses mainly on secondary active nucleobase transporters.