Professor Ed Sturrock

Zinc Metalloprotease Research Group

Professor Ed Sturrock PhD (Cape Town) FRSSAf, Fellow of UCT, ASSAf

Professor, Division of Chemical and Systems Biology, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town (UCT); Member, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM); Fellow of Royal Society of South Africa; Fellow of UCT; Member of ASSAf.

Ed Sturrock received his PhD in 1994 on the synthesis and metabolism of a stable isotope of bilirubin. He went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School where he started his research on angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), a protein that plays a key role in blood pressure regulation. In 2003 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust International Senior Research Fellowship for his work on ACE.

Research interests: Structure-function aspects of ACE; design and synthesis of novel domain-selective ACE inhibitors; the processing of the membrane-anchored proteins. Ed has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers and five patents, and has trained more than 40 students at PhD and MSc levels. He currently holds an NRF B1 rating. Together with colleagues in the Unites States (US) and United Kingdom (UK), he founded a spin-off company AngioDesign (UK) Ltd. 

Key areas of expertise: Protein biochemistry, protease inhibitor design, enzyme structure-function relationships, ectodomain shedding of angiotensin-converting enzyme.


Selected recent publications:

See publications and profile on Research Gate.


Contact details:

Room 3.13, Level 3, Wernher and Beit North Building
Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences
Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine
Faculty of Health Sciences, 
University of Cape Town
Observatory, 7925
South Africa

Tel:    +27 21 406 6312
Email: edward.sturrock@uct.ac.za

Alternate sites: 


Group members:

Member Position
Sylva Schwager Chief Scientific Officer
Anca Savulescu Post-doctoral scientist
Vinasha Ramasamy Post-doctoral scientist
Jeremy Burgers PhD student
Talitha Muller (co-supervised with Jonny Peter) PhD Student
Delia Oosthuizen MSc student
Siya Fikamva MSc student
Sedzani Mbedzi MSc student
Anna Jellema-Butler Hons student
Lindile Bleki Departmental Lab Assistant

Collaborations:

International
Ravi Acharya, University of Bath, UK
Adriana Carmona, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil
Rhian Touyz, University of Glasgow, UK
Poglitsch Marco, Attoquant Diagnostics GmbH, Vienna , Austria

National
Kelly Chibale, Chemistry, UCT
Mpiko Ntsekhe, Medicine, UCT
Trevor Sewell, Electron Microscope Unit, Molecular and Cell Biology, UCT
Kevin Naidoo, Chemistry, UCT