DoctorJodie Johnston

Dr Jodie Johnston is a biochemist and structural biologist in the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at the University of Canterbury, specialising in protein structure and function with interest in applying knowledge gained to problems spanning health, infectious diseases, drug discovery and biotechnology. Her research focuses on understanding how protein structure underpins biological function, with particular interest in bacteria, including human, plant and animal pathogens and food-safe/biotechnology friendly bacteria. She has an expertise in menaquinone (vitamin K2) and its biosynthesis and in thiamine diphosphate (active form of vitamin B1) dependent enzyme systems. Her work seeks to address fundamental molecular questions about bacteria (energy generation, virulence and persistence, and environmental adaptation and antimicrobial resistance) and about protein behaviour (protein-ligand interactions, enzyme catalysis and protein regulation and communication mechanisms) as well as more applied questions focusing on antimicrobial inhibitor discovery and design, and protein engineering to create better biocatalytic protein synthetic biology tools and improved fermentative vitamin supplement production.

She uses a combination of macromolecular X-ray crystallography, biochemical and biophysical characterisation tools, and 3D structural analysis to investigate how proteins move, bind, and change shape, with this understanding underpinning biological function studies and protein bioengineering efforts. She collaborates widely including with computational biochemists, synthetic medicinal chemists and microbiologists. Her work contributes to fundamental understanding of protein biology and supports applications in drug discovery, antibiotic development, and biotechnology.

Jodie is also active in synchrotron science, working with international beamline facilities to solve high‑resolution protein structures. She supervises postgraduate students across structural biology, biochemistry, medicinal chemistry and molecular bioscience.