This project for a PhD student can be titled: “Structure of the Vitamin D Receptor (VDR) with new vitamin D analogues and derivatives”. Vitamin D plays a crucial role in the regulation of gene expression and cellular signalling. The PhD student is expected to master methods of obtaining/purifying/crystallising VDR as well as well as its complexes with new ligands. The ligands will be new analogues and derivatives of the vitamin D made within our HORIZON-MSCA eRaDicate project.
In the final part of the project, we plan to obtain the structures of the VDR/ligand-binding domain itself, structures of new vitamin D analogues, structures of complexes of these analogues with VDR and possibly complexes of VDR/complexes of VDR with DNA fragments. In order to achieve our aims, we plan to use methods of small molecule and macromolecular crystallography, cryoelectron microscopy and electron diffraction.