Joanna Mcgouran
Assistant Professor
Chemistry
Trinity College Dublin
Ireland
Biography
Joanna obtained a MChem Degree from the University of Oxford. In 2009 she completed her D.Phil. entitled "Probing sugar-plant-soil signaling" at the University of Oxford with Professor Ben Davis. Joanna then worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Benedikt Kessler in the Department of Medicine, where she created novel ubiquitin-based covalent capture probes and developed inhibitor screening assays. She returned to chemistry department at the University of Oxford in 2014 to join the Tom Brown group where her research focused on the study of DNA cross-link repair enzymes, developing assays to study their selectivity and for inhibitor screening. In 2016, Joanna moved to Trinity College Dublin to take up an Assistant Professorship in Chemistry.
Research Interest
Research in the laboratory focuses on the synthesis of new activity based probes for chemical biology and molecular physiology applications. Current research focuses on DNA damage repair and deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) as two key regulatory classes of enzyme. There is growing evidence for a pivotal role of deubiqtinating enzymes (DUBs) in pathologies including infection, autoimmunity, cancer and neurodegeneration. DNA damage repair enzymes play crucial roles in cell maintenance and response to cancer treatments. Techniques to make the probes range form protein expression and modification to right through to purely synthetic approaches. An activity based proteomics approach allows us to study these key enzymes in their native environment, examining how activity levels change with cellular state.
Publications
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Altun M, Kramer HB, Willems LI, McDermott JL, Leach CA, Goldenberg SJ, Kumar KG, Konietzny R, Fischer R, Kogan E, Mackeen MM, McGouran J, Khoronenkova SV, Parsons JL, Dianov GL, Nicholson B, Kessler BM, Activity-based chemical proteomics accelerates inhibitor development for deubiquitylating enzymes., Chemistry & biology, 18, (11), 2011, p1401-12
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Farcas AM, Blackledge NP, Sudbery I, Long HK, McGouran JF, Rose NR, Lee S, Sims D, Cerase A, Sheahan TW, Koseki H, Brockdorff N, Ponting CP, Kessler BM, Klose RJ, KDM2B links the Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 (PRC1) to recognition of CpG islands., eLife, 1, 2012, pe00205
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Cho EC, Zheng S, Munro S, Liu G, Carr SM, Moehlenbrink J, Lu YC, Stimson L, Khan O, Konietzny R, McGouran J, Coutts AS, Kessler B, Kerr DJ, Thangue NB, Arginine methylation controls growth regulation by E2F-1., The EMBO journal, 31, (7), 2012, p1785-97
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Zheng S, Moehlenbrink J, Lu YC, Zalmas LP, Sagum CA, Carr S, McGouran JF, Alexander L, Fedorov O, Munro S, Kessler B, Bedford MT, Yu Q, La Thangue NB, Arginine methylation-dependent reader-writer interplay governs growth control by E2F-1., Molecular cell, 52, (1), 2013, p37-51
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Bogani D, Morgan MA, Nelson AC, Costello I, McGouran JF, Kessler BM, Robertson EJ, Bikoff EK, The PR/SET domain zinc finger protein Prdm4 regulates gene expression in embryonic stem cells but plays a nonessential role in the developing mouse embryo., Molecular and cellular biology, 33, (19), 2013, p3936-50
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New M, Olzscha H, Liu G, Khan O, Stimson L, McGouran J, Kerr D, Coutts A, Kessler B, Middleton M, La Thangue NB, A regulatory circuit that involves HR23B and HDAC6 governs the biological response to HDAC inhibitors., Cell death and differentiation, 20, (10), 2013, p1306-16
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Ying S, Chen Z, Medhurst AL, Neal JA, Bao Z, Mortusewicz O, McGouran J, Song X, Shen H, Hamdy FC, Kessler BM, Meek K, Helleday T, DNA-PKcs and PARP1 bind to unresected stalled DNA replication forks where they recruit XRCC1 to mediate repair., Cancer research, 2015
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Bush J., Walport L., McGouran J., Leung I., Berridge G., Van Berkel S., Basak A., Kessler B., Schofield C., The Ugi four-component reaction enables expedient synthesis and comparison of photoaffinity probes, Chemical Science, 4, (11), 2013, p4115-4120
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Bowles EJ, Schiffner T, Rosario M, Needham GA, Ramaswamy M, McGouran J, Kessler B, LaBranche C, McMichael AJ, Montefiori D, Sattentau QJ, Hanke T, Stewart-Jones GB, Comparison of neutralizing antibody responses elicited from highly diverse polyvalent heterotrimeric HIV-1 gp140 cocktail immunogens versus a monovalent counterpart in rhesus macaques., PloS one, 9, (12), 2014, pe114709
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Watson AS, Riffelmacher T, Stranks A, Williams O, De Boer J, Cain K, MacFarlane M, McGouran J, Kessler B, Khandwala S, Chowdhury O, Puleston D, Phadwal K, Mortensen M, Ferguson D, Soilleux E, Woll P, Jacobsen SE, Simon AK, Autophagy limits proliferation and glycolytic metabolism in acute myeloid leukemia., Cell death discovery, 1, 2015
