Dr Nick Kruger

Dr Nick Kruger

Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies, Dept of Plant Sciences

Emeritus Fellow 

Biography:

George Ratcliffe and I recently organised a symposium on “Pathways and fluxes: analysis of the plant metabolic network” for SEB Glasgow in July 2011. A special issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany based on this symposium will be published in 2012, but in the meantime the abstracts of the presentations from the meeting are available.

A collaborative study on the role of the small chloroplast protein CP12 on growth and metabolism in tobacco plants is due to be published in Plant Physiology. Beyond my main focus on plant biology, metabolic flux analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has revealed an unexpected function for the enzyme isocitrate lyase which provides a potential drug target for treatment of TB.

Committee member of the Biochemical Society Theme Panel III: Bioenergetics and Metabolism. The theme panel meets about three times each year to consider sponsorship of meeting proposals. If you have any suggestions for novel and exciting meetings in the area of metabolic biology, I would love to hear from you. In autumn 2010 I again attended the Biochemical Society jamboree in London - a two-day event that seeks to bring together the members of all the specialist themes to coordinate our diverse activities and explore areas and topics of common interest.

Member of the Editorial Board of Phytochemistry, and the Faculty of 1000 Biology Plant Biology (Plant Biochemistry and Physiology section).