Structural basis of Nav1.7 inhibition

Congratulations to Dr Foteini Tzakoniati whose work has just been published in Cell.

The paper is entitled "Structural Basis of Nav1.7 Inhibition by a Gating-Modifier Spider Toxin" and Foteini contributed to the crystallisation of complexes of VSD2-Protoxin-II during an eight-month industrial placement at Genentech in 2017.

This work was carried out in parallel with her PhD in our lab as part of the Institute of Chemical Biology Doctoral Training Centre on related cyclic cystine knot peptide ligands for Nav1.7. Nav1.7 is a voltage-gated sodium channel, which is an important drug target for the treatment of pain.