Valerie Pye PhD

Senior Principal Protein Crystallographer

Valerie Pye has over 20 years expertise in all aspects of structural biology.

More about Valerie

Valerie joins Peak Proteins from the Francis Crick Institute with over 20 years of academic research experience. Since obtaining her PhD in protein crystallography from Birkbeck College, University of London, Valerie has worked at several institutes including Imperial College London, the Carlsberg Laboratory (Copenhagen), Trinity College Dublin, and Cancer Research UK (Clare Hall). She has co-authored over 30 peer-reviewed publications and over 50 structures in the PDB. Valerie enjoys the challenge of structural biology and appreciates the (near) atomic level view of how proteins function and interact with other macromolecules or ligands of interest.

Valerie grew up in the Staffordshire Moorlands, just 15 miles from Peak Proteins and, in addition to embarking on a new step in her career, she was happy to move closer to family and old friends. When not at work, she likes to travel, enjoys cooking/baking and gardening, has a keen interest in arts & crafts, theatre, and likes to be out and about in the countryside.

Notable Publications (click to view)

Selected publications are below.
For a full list of Valeries publications please see the Google scholar link

The Drug-Induced Interface That Drives HIV-1 Integrase Hypermultimerization and Loss of Function.
mBio. 2023 14(1):e0356022
Singer, M.R., Dinh, T., Levintov, L., Annamalai, A.S., Rey, J.S., Briganti, L., Cook, N.J., Pye, V.E., Taylor, I.A., Kim, K., Engelman, A.N., Kim, B., Perilla, J.R., Kvaratskhelia, M., Cherepanov, P.

Structural basis for the inhibition of HTLV-1 integration inferred from cryo-EM deltaretroviral intasome structures.
Nature Commun. 2021 12(1) 4996
Barski, M.S., Vanzo, T., Zhao, X.Z., Smith, S.J., Ballandras-Colas, A., Cronin, N.B., Pye, V.E., Hughes, S.H., Burke, T.R. Jr, Cherepanov, P., Maertens, G.N.

SARS-CoV-2 can recruit a heme metabolite to evade antibody immunity.
Sci. Adv. 2021. 7(22):eabg7607
Rosa, A., Pye, V.E., Graham, C., Muir, L., Seow, J., Ng, K.W., Cook, N.J., Rees-Spear, C., Parker, E., Dos Santos, M.S., Rosadas, C., Susana, A., Rhys, H., Nans, A., Masino, L., Roustan, C., Christodoulou, E., Ulferts, R., Wrobel, A.G., Short, C.E., Fertleman, M., Sanders, R.W., Heaney, J., Spyer, M., Kjær, S., Riddell, A., Malim, M.H., Beale, R., MacRae, J.I., Taylor, G.P., Nastouli, E., van Gils, M.J., Rosenthal, P.B., Pizzato, M., McClure, M.O., Tedder, R.S., Kassiotis, G., McCoy, L.E., Doores, K.J., Cherepanov, P.

A bipartite structural organisation defines the SERINC family of HIV-1 restriction factors.
NSMB 2020. 27(1):78-83
Pye, V.E., Rosa, A., Bertelli, C., Struwe, W.B., Maslen, S.L., Corey, R., Liko, I., Hassall, M., Mattiuzzo, G., Ballandras-Colas, A., Nans, A., Takeuchi, Y., Stansfeld, P.J., Skehel, J.M., Robinson, C.V., Pizzato, M. and Cherepanov, P.

Crystal structure of the integral membrane diacylglycerol kinase.
Nature. 2013. 497(7450):521-4
Li, D., Lyons, J.A., Pye, V.E., Vogeley, L., Aragão, D., Kenyon, C.P., Shah, S.T., Doherty, C., Aherne, M., Caffrey, M.