Richard Zhou

Our latest study of the scavenger receptor CD163, led by @RichardZhou_. This follows our previous study of how CD163 uses its remarkable molecular architecture to bind haptoglobin-haemoglobin. We now show how its flexible arms allow haemoglobin binding and ligand promiscuity.

Delighted to share the final version of Richard Zhou's study on how the CD163 scavenger receptor cleans up after toxic haemoglobin spills out from our blood cells. An amazing grabber mechanism! rdcu.be/ewPA2

@maria__violaris Big congrats, Dr Maria Violaris!

I finished my PhD!! Officially a Dr!

CD163 is a scavenger receptor and it has a tricky task to grab a variety of different haptoglobin-haemoglobin complexes without binding haptoglobin alone. Richard showed how its complex architecture creates arms which are used as a grabber and how this is regulated by calcium.

Read all about it in our preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

New science from Richard Zhou... When our blood cells lyse, they release haemoglobin, which is dangerous to our body. We detoxify this by binding it to a serum protein, haptoglobin and taking it up into macrophages, using the receptor CD163. Richard showed how CD163 works!