Peak Proteins Welcomes Valerie Pye
Peak Proteins is delighted to welcome Dr Valerie Pye as a Senior Principal Protein Crystallographer to the team. As an experienced protein structural biologist, Valerie has extensive knowledge and expertise in taking protein structure projects all the way from construct design through to protein expression, purification, crystallisation and finally structure determination using X-ray crystallography and cryoEM approaches. Given her wide range of experience, over 30 publications and 50 structures deposited in the PDB database, Valerie is a wonderful addition to our growing team.
Life in Academia
Valerie joins us from her position as Principal Laboratory Research Scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in London with over 20 years of research experience at various institutions starting with her PhD in protein crystallography at Birkbeck College, University of London. Post-doctoral positions at Imperial College London, Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen and Trinity College Dublin then led to a Senior Scientific Officer role at CRUK Clare Hall Laboratories, prior to the merger of CRUK sites to the world-class facilities in the Francis Crick Institute.
“Of all the projects I’ve worked on, the SERINC family of HIV restriction factors, was definitely the most challenging and rewarding. I particularly liked building the structure de-novo and presenting the work at a number of conferences.”
Valerie has worked on a number of challenging, high risk projects ranging from gaining structural insights of integral membrane proteins, to exploring protein complexes by cryoEM as well as a number of crystallography projects. “I enjoy learning and applying different techniques, where appropriate, in order to gain the desired results.”
Moving to Peak Proteins
Changing course from a career in academia, Val is looking forward to bringing her knowledge and expertise to the CRO setting.
Valerie added “I enjoy new challenges and learning new skills and techniques. Having heard good things about Peak Proteins from some of my colleagues, and a number of Peak Protein clients, and noticing how much the team has grown, I was really keen to apply my scientific and collaborative skills in the commercial setting, working closely with clients on a range of projects.”
Dr Mark Abbott, Managing Director commented “We are delighted to welcome Valerie to the team at Peak Proteins. Valerie brings a lot of structural expertise and knowledge of cryoEM across a broad range of targets and will take on a leadership role in our expanding structural biology team”.
Life Outside of Peak Proteins
Val’s home roots were in the Staffordshire area, less than 15 miles from Macclesfield, so she is no stranger to the beautiful scenery and life in the North West. In her spare time, Valerie likes to be out and about in the countryside and gardening, and on those inevitable rainy days, she can pursue her other interests in cooking, baking, arts and crafts. Val is looking forward to seeing more of her family and old friends now that she’s living closer to ‘home’.
