Editorial Board
Editor-in-Chief: Professor Sarah Perrett OBE FRSC
Affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Keywords: Protein folding, post-translation modification and quality control; protein misfolding and disease.
Biography: Sarah is a Professor at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where she has been a Principal Investigator since 2003. Sarah studied Natural Sciences (Chemistry) at the University of Cambridge and completed a PhD in Protein Chemistry in 1997, supervised by Prof. Sir Alan Fersht, FRS. She then held a Research Fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge before moving to Beijing in 2000. She has supervised around 30 PhD students, and has also been involved in teaching of Biochemistry to undergraduate students at Peking University (2013-2015) and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2015-2020). Sarah currently divides her time between Beijing and Cambridge, where she is a Visiting Scientist in the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, Course Director at the Faraday Institute, and a Senior Member of St Edmund’s College. Her research interests include mechanisms of protein folding, amyloid formation and prion propagation, which her research group studies using a range of biophysical techniques. She has published over 80 research articles and edited three books, including a volume of Essays in Biochemistry “Amyloids in Health and Disease” (2014).
Editorial Advisory Panel
Paul Brookes
Affiliation: University of Rochester Medical Center, USA
Keywords: Mitochondria, metabolism, bioenergetics, ischaemia, hypoxia, cardiomyocytes
Biography: Paul was born and educated in the UK, earning a BSc in Biochemistry from University College London, and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge (Martin Brand's group). Following a short post-doc at UCL's Institute of Neurology, he undertook postdoctoral studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with Dr Victor Darley-Usmar in 1998. In 2003 he moved to the University of Rochester in upstate New York, where he is currently a tenured Professor of Anesthesiology, and of Pharmacology/ Physiology. Dr Brookes' research focuses on heart attack, and the role of mitochondria and metabolism both as players in the cardiac pathology, and as targets for therapeutic intervention.
Serena Carra
Affiliation: University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Keywords: molecular chaperones, small heat shock proteins, protein misfolding diseases, biomolecular condensates
Biography: Serena is Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, since 2015. She gained her PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Catania (Italy) in January 2004. From 2004 – 2007, Serena worked as post-doc at the Laval University (Canada), from 2007 – 2009 as Senior Scientist and from 2009 – 2011 as Assistant Professor at the University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG The Netherlands). During this period, Serena discovered the HSPB8-BAG3-HSP70 complex and its role in targeting misfolded proteins to autophagy for clearance. Since 2011, in Italy, Serena is pursuing her research to understand the basic functions of chaperones, especially small heat shock proteins, and their implication in neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases.
Steven Gutteridge
Affiliation: FMC Agricultural Solutions, Stine Research Center, USA
Key words: Mechanism of action of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides; plant molecular biology; high-throughput screens; assay development; structure determination; protein-ligand interactions
Biography: Steven is currently a Research Manager at FMC Agricultural Solutions, Stine Research Center involved in discovery of new active compounds for crop protection. As a Carnegie scholar at Strathclyde University, Scotland he completed a PhD on metalloenzymology, then became a NATO Fellow at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oregon Health Sciences Center, Portland, Oregon. He joined the Rothamsted Experimental Station in 1981 to engineer photosynthesis, extending this work when he joined the DuPont Company in 1986. In 1997 he moved to the Agricultural Products Department building chemical genomics capabilities for discovery. This group is now part of the FMC business.
Lorna Harries
Affiliation: The University of Exeter, College of Medicine and Health, UK
Keywords: Gene expression, non-coding RNA, splicing, mRNA processing, ageing, diabetes
Biography: Lorna is Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Exeter College of Medicine and Health. She gained her PhD in Genetics from University College London in November 1994 and now leads the RNA-mediated disease mechanisms group at the University of Exeter College of Medicine and Health. Her group has interests in alternative messenger RNA processing, non-coding RNA and epigenetic gene regulation in the context of ageing and chronic disease. Her work ranges from ‘big data’ approaches (whole genome transcriptomics and epigenetics) to molecular analysis of specific genes, encompassing molecular, cellular and systemic analyses.
Samrat Mukhopadhyay
Affiliation: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India
Keywords: intrinsically disordered proteins, phase transition, misfolding, aggregation, amyloid formation
Biography: Samrat Mukhopadhyay was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and following a Bachelors’ from Jadavpur University he joined the Integrated PhD program at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in 1997. After his Ph.D., he transitioned his career into Biophysics to address interesting and important questions in the area of protein misfolding and aggregation that has been implicated in many debilitating neurological disorders in humans. As a visiting fellow at TIFR with Prof. G. Krishnamoorthy and Prof. Jayant Udgaonkar (NCBS), he utilized molecular biology, time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy and atomic-force microscopy techniques to delineate the mechanism of protein misfolding leading to amyloid formation. During his postdoctoral work with Prof. Ashok Deniz at the Scripps Research Institute in California, USA, in collaboration with Prof. Susan Lindquist at Whitehead Institute, MIT, he addressed a key issue in yeast prion biology using single-molecule biophysics approach: How does a yeast prion determinant spontaneously assemble to form self-replicating amyloid fibrils? He returned to India towards the end of 2008 and joined the newly established Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) at Mohali (near the City of Chandigarh).
Elizabeth Shephard
Affiliation: University College London, UK
Keywords: Metabolism, xenobiotic, microbiome, trimethylaminuria, flavin-containing monooxygenases, drug metabolism, pharmacogenetics
Biography: Elizabeth is Professor of Molecular Biology at UCL. She is interested in research-based education and is a principal fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE). Her research is focussed on the flavin-containing monooxygenase (FMO) family. These proteins have roles both in drug and endogenous metabolism. The biochemical consequences of genetic variation within the FMO family members for drug therapy and human health is a particular focus. Of special interest is the role of FMO3 in the genetic disorder primary trimethylaminuria.
Y. Shrike Zhang
Affiliation: Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School, USA
Keywords: Microphysiological systems, bioprinting, bioanalysis
Biography: Shrike currently holds an Assistant Professor position at Harvard Medical School and is an Associate Bioengineer at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He has pioneered the integration of modular sensing units with organ-on-chip systems to enable in situ, continual, and automated analyses of physicochemical parameters in a non-invasive manner; the investigations on biomaterial-tissue interactions through biomedical imaging; and the use of bioprinting to tissue model fabrication. His scientific contributions have been recognized by >40 international, national, and regional awards
Cathy Tournier
Affiliation: The University of Manchester, UK
Keywords: MAPK, signalling, cancer, mouse genetics, protein phosphorylation, gene expression
Biography: Cathy Tournier was awarded a PhD in 1996 by the University of Paris XI in France for her work on the regulation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) in astrocytes. She then trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Roger J Davis at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the USA, where she discovered that genetically modified mouse models constituted powerful tools to decipher cellular and molecular bases of biological processes. In July 2000, she was appointed as a lecturer in the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester. She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2012. Her research focuses on deciphering abnormal signal transduction via MAPKs in diseases.
Zhe Wu
Affiliation: Southern University of Science and Technology, China
Keywords: co-transcriptional gene regulation, non-coding RNAs, plant biochemistry, flowering and germination
Biography: Zhe Wu received his Ph.D in Peking University, 2011, for his research on the role of an RNA-binding protein in regulating plant gene expression and development. He then worked with Dr. Caroline Dean at the John Innes Centre, UK, as a post-doctoral scientist for 5 years. His work during his post-doc focused on the interconnection between the RNA-processing of long non-coding RNAs and chromatic repression at FLC, a key gene underlying developmental timing in plants.
