معرفی
Professor Daniela Barillà is a Professor of Prokaryotic Genetics at the University of York's Department of Biology. Her research focuses on DNA segregation mechanisms in bacteria and archaea, particularly in multidrug resistance plasmids and thermophilic archaea. She employs multidisciplinary approaches including genetics, biochemistry, super-resolution microscopy, and structural biology.
Research Interests:
- Plasmid inheritance mechanisms in Escherichia coli
- Chromosome segregation in archaea, especially Sulfolobus solfataricus
- Structural studies of segregation proteins like ParF and ParG
- Molecular adaptations in extremophiles
Recent work revealed ParF forms dynamic 3D meshworks in bacterial nucleoids and proposed a 'Venus flytrap' model for plasmid positioning. Her team also discovered unique three-component plasmid segregation systems in archaea involving CenpA-like histones.
Teaching emphasizes interactive molecular biology lectures with animations and student-driven grant proposal exercises. She supervises projects using molecular biology, microscopy, and biophysical techniques.
Current grants include BBSRC-funded projects investigating archaeal chromosome organization and plasmid segregation mechanisms. Her lab collaborates internationally on extremophile studies and molecular machinery elucidation.
