Soné Kotze

Soné Kotze

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
Department Computational Biology & Chemistry
Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

Building: 4.1
Room: 511

Phone: +49 341 6025 2723
sone.kotze@ufz.de

Research interests

  • Membrane permeability
  • Active transport
  • Toxicokinetic modelling

Academic career

  • 02/2022 - Current: Doctoral Researcher, Department of Computational Biology and Chemistry, Helmholtz Centre of Environmental Research
  • 02/2022 - Current: PhD Candidate in Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences II, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
  • 01/2020 - 12/2021: MSc in Biochemistry (cum laude), Department of Systems Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
  • 01/2019 - 12/2019: BSc Honours in Biochemistry (cum laude), Department of Systems Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
  • 01/2016 - 12/2018: BSc in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Current projects

  • The role of active efflux in membrane permeability

We use a combined approach of mathematical modeling and MDCK-transwell experiments to characterise the facilitated transport of chemicals through cellular membranes by efflux pumps. 

The objectives are:

  • To investigate the effect of aqueous boundary layers and the filter in transwell experiments, which are used to determine the efflux ratio of pharmaceutic compounds.
  • To investigate the pH-dependence of these efflux ratios, thereby probing the affinity of the transporters for certain species of pharmaceutical compounds (i.e ionic, neutral).
  • To use these findings to refine the model for bidirectional transport across cellular monolayers.
  • To investigate the idea of an energetic threshold for active transport
Keywords: Active transport, efflux pumps, permeability

Publications

2024 (2)