Aimee Boyle creates metal-binding peptides and proteins with the aim of investigating their structural properties and exploring their potential functions. At a fundamental level, the effects of metal-binding on peptide folding (and vice versa) are probed and applications of these metal-containing biomolecules in areas such as catalysis, biosensing, and antibacterial coatings are explored.

More information about Aimee Boyle

Biography

Aimee Boyle was born in the UK. In 2008 she graduated from the University of Southampton (UK) with an MChem in Chemistry with Medicinal Sciences. During her studies she completed a six-month research internship at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore where she investigated the structural properties of two self-assembling, cage-like proteins. This project initiated her fascination with the assembly pathways of peptides and proteins.   

In September 2008 she moved to the University of Bristol (UK) to begin a PhD with Professor Dek Woolfson. The PhD focused on the design and self-assembly of coiled-coil peptides, investigating how to form coiled coils with differing oligomer states and also how to join them together with short peptidic linkers to generate closed nanostructures of defined, varying sizes. 

In 2013 she moved to Leiden and worked as a postdoc in the Supramolecular and Biomaterials Chemistry group of Alexander Kros. Here, she contributed to several projects including a collaborative effort with other groups in Leiden University studying ways in which to coat gold nanorods with targeting peptides for single-molecule tracking in vitro. She also studied model systems for membrane fusion, focusing on understanding coiled-coil mediated liposome fusion. 

In 2015 she was awarded a VENI fellowship, which enabled her to begin her own research line. She started to design and characterise metallopeptides in order to investigate their metal-binding selectivity and the effects metal-binding has on peptide folding. 

In January 2020 she became as Assistant Professor and moved to the Macromolecular Biochemistry (MacBio) group at Leiden University. Here, she continues her research into metal-binding peptides but is also expanding into the protein universe. She is also beginning to investigate the applications of metallopeptides and proteins as, amongst other things, biosensors and antibacterial agents. For more information about her current research projects, please see her research page.

Curriculum Vitae

Personal information

Nationality:   British
Date of birth:   25 May 1985

Education

2013   PhD, School of Chemistry, Bristol University, UK. Thesis title: ‘The de novo design, synthesis, and characterization of peptide-based nanostructures"
Thesis Supervisor: Prof. D.N. Woolfson
2008   MChem, Chemistry and Medicinal Science, School of Chemistry, Southampton University, UK

Current and previous research positions

2020 – now    Assistant Professor, Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, The Netherlands
2013 – 2019   Postdoctoral researcher (Veni), Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University (Prof. Alexander Kros)

Contribution to teaching and supervision

• MSc courses: "Protein Folding, Misfolding and Design" and "Academic Writing"
• BSc BFW course: "Biochemie 1"

(Co-)supervision of 8 PhD students since 2016.

Other responsibilities since 2016

• Reviewer for Journal of the American Chemical Society, Scientific Reports, Chemical Science, Angewandte Chemie, and others

Publication record including five recent representative publications

42 papers with >2500 citations, H-index 23 (Google Scholar, 2023)

Full publication record: Leiden University, Google Scholar

• AL Boyle, M Rabe, NSA Crone, GG Rhys, N Soler, P Voskamp, NS Pannu, A Kros. ‘Selective coordination of three transition metal ions within a coiled-coil scaffold.’ Chem. Sci. 2019. 31 (10): 7456-7465. DOI: 10.1039/C9SC01165J
• NSA Crone, A Kros,  AL Boyle. ‘Modulation of coiled-coil binding strength and fusogenicity though peptide stapling.’ Bioconjug. Chem. 2020. 31 (3): 834-843. DOI: 10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.0c00009
• EA Egorova, MMJ van Rijt, N Sommerdijk, GS Gooris, JA Bouwstra, AL Boyle, A Kros. ‘One peptide for them all: gold nanoparticles of different sizes are stabilized by a common peptide amphphile.’ ACS Nano, 2020. 14 (5): 5874-5886. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c01021
• MJ Schen, RCL Olsthoorn, Y Zeng, T Bakkum, A Kros, AL Boyle. ‘Magnetic-activated cell sorting using coiled-coil peptides: an alternative strategy for isolating cells with high efficiency and specificity.’ ACS Appl. Mater. Interfac. 2021. 13 (10): 11621-11630. DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c22185
• NSA Crone, N van Hilten, A van der Ham, HJ Risselada, A Kros, AL Boyle. ‘Azobenzene-based amino acids for the photocontrol of coiled-coil peptides.’ Bioconjug. Chem. 2023. 34 (2): 345-357. DOI: 10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.2c00534

Presentations including five presentations at international conferences since 2016

• Dutch peptide symposium (The Netherlands, April 2023)
• 1st International conference on metal binding peptides (France, July 2022)
• 1st EPS online peptide symposium (July 2021)
• Coiled coils, collagen, and fibrous proteins (Austria, September 2017)
• 34th European Peptide Symposium (Germany, September 2016)