Towers Lab

A modified cyclosporine enhances lentivector transduction ex vivo and in vivo by degrading IFITM3 Intrinsic innate immune barriers have evolved to suppress viral infection and can reduce effective gene delivery in gene therapy. We have developed BG147, a novel cyclosporine A analogue, optimised vi...

New preprint from our lab, led by our postdocs Dara Annett and Kate Morling in collaboration with Selwood Lab!

We developed a modified cyclosporine, BG147, which enhances lentivector gene therapy transduction, ex vivo in HSPC and in vivo in mouse photoreceptors, by degrading IFITM3. Check it out!

Delighted to have won a Wellcome Discovery Award for 8 more years of transformative research. We will advance our knowledge of innate immune mechanisms using viruses and chemotherapeutics as tools.

Thanks to everyone who contributed along the way.

Supported by the UK-ICN travel grant

Excellent presentation by our MERS superstar postdoc @ziqizhou.bsky.social at the UK International Coronavirus Network conference in Liverpool

@rsbmilne.bsky.social @jollylab.bsky.social @mattvxwhelan.bsky.social @dremmacbw.bsky.social

Blizard Institute welcomes world-leading team of virologists

We are delighted to be joining the Blizard Institute in Autumn. The Blizard Institute is an amazing place for discovery science and we're looking forward to more transformative research and collaborations.

www.qmul.ac.uk/blizard/abou...

Very proud of our postdocs @ziqizhou.bsky.social and @immun0liver.bsky.social for winning 1st Poster Prize (Ziqi Zhou) and 2nd Talk Prize (Oliver Wright) by an audience vote at the London Infection Network for/by ECRs held at the Crick Institute. Well done guys.

What an absolute privilege it was to be invited to speak at #UKCellularMicrobiology @KingsCollegeLon!

Having attended this conference for years as a Salmonella biologist, it was really special to come back this time as a Virologist. #AcademicLife #CellularMicrobiology #Research

Oliver Wright @immun0liver.bsky.social @towerslab.bsky.social presenting on innate immune response to #SARS-CoV2. #CiViASymposium

Kicking off Day 2 of our #CiViASymposium (expertly chaired by Prof Kristina Broliden) is Prof Greg Towers ( @towerslab.bsky.social‬ , @UCL.ac.uk) about the role of innate #immune evasion in the #pandemic potential of #viruses.

Well done @melghazaly.bsky.social. Enjoy the discussions of whether hiv-1 has a vpx protein 😆

Lovely work Adam.

A wee summary of our paper:

Tim and Juraj’s landmark paper from 2020 was the first to elucidate the structural and biochemical detail of RNF213, the largest known E3 and only AAA-E3 hybrid. Among many observations, two stood out: E3 activity was RING-independent and specific for the E2 UBE2L3.

Virtual Virology is back - our first ever phage session. Do join us...

Microbiology and infectious diseases This page highlights recent articles on all aspects of bacteriology, mycology, parasitology and virology, covering the biology of pathogens, host-pathogen ...

Great seeing our recent antiviral PROTAC paper chosen by Nature Comms Editors as one of the 50 best papers in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases!

www.nature.com/collections/...

Macrocycle-based PROTACs selectively degrade cyclophilin A and inhibit HIV-1 and HCV - Nature Communications Targeted protein degradation has so far been rarely applied as an antiviral strategy. Here, the authors report that macrocycle-based PROTACs targeting host protein cyclophilin A, exploited during vira...

Happy to announce that our 2nd paper of 2025 is out! 🎊

This collaboration between our brilliant postdoc @lsnewton.bsky.social and @claragathmann.bsky.social, from Dave Selwood’s chemistry lab, designs and employs PROTACs to degrade CypA and inhibit HIV and HCV.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We wonder if reduced dynamics and thus regulatibility explains less precise uncoating regulation by HIV-2 leading to greater cGAS and TREX1 sensitivity than HIV-1. Great work guys!

We particularly like the fact that it is consistent with our hypothesis that the HIV-2 capsid pore in the centre of hexamers is less dynamic than HIV-1 at the β-hairpin and the CypA binding loop.

Love this recent preprint from Yong’s lab. This beautiful new structure of the intact HIV-2 viral capsid Illustrates interesting differences between HIV-2 and HIV-1 that start to explain differences and similarities in host co-factor usage and core formation.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Early events in the HIV life cycle.

First paper of 2025 is out now! 🎉

Our talented postdocs @katemorling.bsky.social and @melghazaly.bsky.social review latest advancements of how HIV capsid and accessory proteins Vpx/Vpr have evolved (or not) to regulate host innate immunity.

www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

My book is out today - buy it (please)

Eurythmics Sweet Dreams. You can hear the sound of the underground trains. You know it feels like distant thunder.

Delighted to be presenting with my UCL colleagues at the 9th Princess Chulabhorn International Science Congress. My first talk on innate immunity in cancer. Thanks to Evolution Education Trust and PhD student Linran Wang and post doc Bruno Carvalho Ramos for their work and insight