Alex Caputo

Alex is a Wellcome Trust student on the Structural Biology program. His work focusses on the structural and biophysical characterisation of several host and viral antiviral targets. One project is working towards a high-resolution structure of the hepatitis C virus capsid in the hope of identifying the molecular details of the capsid that can help to identify novel sites to target for antiviral therapy. He is also working on the structural studies of endoplasmic reticulum alpha-glucosidases, which are targets for the antiviral iminosugars, in order to better understand the mode of binding and specificity of the iminosugars.

Alex did his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Melbourne, Australia. During this time he started working at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute with Dr Jacqui Gulbis in the Structural Biology on structural studies of potassium channels. He continued on to do his Honours project in that lab and followed on for a further year as a research assistant. In the middle of his time as a research assistant, Alex did an internship at AstraZeneca in Cheshire, England in the Cells, Protein and Structural Studies group gaining valuable industry experience.