معرفی
Dr. Sean Colloms is a Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biosciences at the University of Glasgow, where he has worked since 2008. His research focuses on enzymes that cut and rejoin DNA, particularly site-specific recombinases and transposases, with applications in biotechnology, synthetic biology, and DNA topology analysis.
- 2000-2008: Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow
- 1994-2000: Research Associate at University of Oxford
- 1992-1994: EMBO Fellow at Netherlands Cancer Institute
Research Interests: His lab investigates the mechanisms of DNA recombination enzymes, including:
- Directionality regulation in bacteriophage integrases via recombination directionality factors (RDFs)
- Topological control in Xer site-specific recombination by proteins like ArgR and PepA
- Development of serine integrases for synthetic biology applications (genetic switches, counters)
- Transposase mechanisms (e.g., ISY100) for gene function analysis
- Topoisomerase function in resolving DNA entanglement
Article Trends: Recent work emphasizes DNA topology manipulation using serine integrases for binary counting systems, mathematical modeling of recombination mechanisms, and topoisomerase decatenation assays. Earlier studies focus on transposon biology, Holliday junction resolution, and structural analysis of recombinases.
Scientific Awards:
- Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship (2000-2006)
- Member of Genetics Society, Society for General Microbiology, and American Society for Microbiology
Grants: Recipient of BBSRC, Leverhulme Trust, and Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance funding for projects on DNA recombination mechanisms, synthetic biology tools, and genome structure analysis.
Labs & Teams: Collaborates with experts in synthetic biology (Susan Rosser), structural biology (Marshall Stark, Alice Pyne), and microbiology (David Sherratt). His lab uses biochemical, biophysical, and computational approaches to study DNA enzyme dynamics.
