Jamie Blaza

Research

Research

The detailed research of the York Bioenergetics Lab, which Jamie is the head of, can be found on the lab website at bioenergetics.site. This site also covers lab culture, funding, and publications. In a nutshell, our research interests concern bioenergetics, cryo-EM, and bacteriology, but recently we have also begun, through collaboration, to work on carbon fixation and glycoscience.

Biography

Biography

Jamie leads the York Bioenergetics Lab, which is a part of the York Structural Biology Laboratory. He was appointed in 2018 to establish cryo-EM at York and to launch his independent research career. In 2021, he was awarded a UKRI Future Leader Fellowship.

Before York, Jamie studied at the University of Leeds and the National University of Singapore for his undergraduate degree in Microbiology. He pursued a PhD at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge with Judy Hirst, developing biophysical methods to measure proton and electron transfer reactions in mammalian mitochondrial systems. Following his PhD, he stayed on with Judy as a MRC Career Development Fellow, to learn electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM). This was followed by a brief stint in Ben Luisi’s laboratory in the Cambridge Biochemistry Department looking at bacterial antibiotic transporters.

Beyond work, Jamie is a proud dad to a son with Costello Syndrome. He enjoys relaxing with his son and partner in the beautiful cafes and pubs of York, running, and occasionally finds time for gaming.

Projects

Projects

Interested Masters and PhD students are encouraged to contact Jamie for further information about available projects. As our work sits at the interface of biology and chemistry/physics people from either scientific background are encouraged to get in touch.

Publications

Selected Publications

Visit Jamie's Google Scholar page for a full list of publications.

Barrett J, Naduthodi MIS, Mao Y, Dégut C, Musiał S, Salter A, Leake MC, Plevin MJ, McCormick AJ, Blaza JN, Mackinder LCM. A promiscuous mechanism to phase separate eukaryotic carbon fixation in the green lineage. Nature Plants 10, 2024

Furlan C, Chongdar N, Gupta P, Lubitz W, Ogata H, Blaza JN, Birrell JA. Structural insight on the mechanism of an electron-bifurcating [FeFe] hydrogenase. eLife e79361, 2022

Agip AA, Blaza JN, Bridges HR, Viscomi C, Rawson S, Muench SP, Hirst J. CryoEM structures of complex I from mouse heart mitochondria in two biochemically-defined states. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 25, 2018.

Blaza JN, Vinothkumar KR, Hirst J. Structure of mammalian respiratory complex I in the deactive state. Structure 26, 2018.

Milenkovic D, Blaza JN, Larrson N-G, Hirst J. The enigma of the respiratory chain supercomplex. Cell Metabolism 25, 2017.

Blaza JN, Bridges HR, Aragão D, Dunn EA, Heikal A, Cook GM, Nakatani Y, Hirst J. The mechanism of catalysis by type-II NADH:quinone oxidoreductases. Scientific Reports 7:40165, 2017.

Blaza JN, Serreli R, Jones AY, Mohammed K, Hirst J. Kinetic evidence against partitioning of the ubiquinone pool and the catalytic relevance of respiratory-chain supercomplexes. PNAS 111, 2014.