Sarah O'Connor explained

Nationality:American
Workplaces:John Innes Centre, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Known For:plant biosynthesis, enzymology, mutagenesis
Website:https://www.sarahoconnor.org/
Doctoral Advisor:Barbara Imperiali

Sarah E. O'Connor is an American molecular biologist working to understand the molecular machinery involved in assembling important plant natural products – vinblastine, morphine, iridoids, secologanin – and how changing the enzymes involved in this pathway lead to diverse analogs. She was a Project Leader at the John Innes Centre in the UK between 2011 and 2019. O'Connor was appointed by the Max Planck Society in 2018 to head the Department of Natural Product Biosynthesis at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, taking up her role during 2019.[1]

Education

O'Connor received her Ph.D. working with Barbara Imperiali on conformational effects induced by large proteins at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[2] She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, where she worked on epothiolone biosynthesis with Professor Christopher T. Walsh.[3] She later returned to MIT as a professor from 2003 to 2010.

Research

O'Connor's work involves detailed study of many important species of medicinally-relevant plants: Rauvolfia serpentina, Catharanthus roseus, and Aspergillus japonicus. Her lab utilizes bioinformatics and enzyme characterization to uncover new pathways by which plants construct these molecules. Insertion of new enzymes, for example a halogenase[4] or oxidase[5] results in novel variants of the molecules not found in nature.

Awards and honors

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Sarah O'Connor will become new director at our institute. 2018-12-20.
  2. Viegas. J.. 2013-12-02. Profile of Barbara Imperiali. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. en. 110. 52. 20850–20851. 10.1073/pnas.1321020110. 24297879. 3876202. 2013PNAS..11020850V . 0027-8424. free.
  3. O’Connor. Sarah E.. Chen. Huawei. Walsh. Christopher. 2002. Enzymatic Assembly of Epothilones: The EpoC Subunit and Reconstitution of the EpoA-ACP/B/C Polyketide and Nonribosomal Peptide Interfaces. Biochemistry. EN. 41. 17. 5685–5694. 10.1021/bi020006w. 11969430 .
  4. Glenn. Weslee S.. Nims. Ezekiel. O’Connor. Sarah E.. 2011-12-07. Reengineering a Tryptophan Halogenase To Preferentially Chlorinate a Direct Alkaloid Precursor. Journal of the American Chemical Society. EN. 133. 48. 19346–19349. 10.1021/ja2089348. 22050348. 0002-7863.
  5. Caputi. Lorenzo. Franke. Jakob. Farrow. Scott C.. Chung. Khoa. Payne. Richard M. E.. Nguyen. Trinh-Don. Dang. Thu-Thuy T.. Carqueijeiro. Inês Soares Teto. Koudounas. Konstantinos. 2018-05-03. Missing enzymes in the biosynthesis of the anticancer drug vinblastine in Madagascar periwinkle. Science. 360. 6394. en. 1235–1239. 10.1126/science.aat4100. 0036-8075. 29724909. 2018Sci...360.1235C . free.
  6. Web site: Wain medal lecture – School of Biosciences – University of Kent. www.kent.ac.uk. 2018-10-18.
  7. Web site: Sarah O'Connor elected into EMBO John Innes Centre. Sponge. Creative. www.jic.ac.uk. en. 2018-10-17.
  8. Web site: RSC Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry 2019 Winner . . 2019 . 7 May 2019 .
  9. Web site: Zwei neue Ehrenmitglieder. de. 2023-10-30.
  10. Web site: ACS 2022 national award winners. 2021-10-04.
  11. Web site: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Preise 2023. 2022-12-08.
  12. Web site: Sarah O'connor . 2023-05-24 . royalsociety.org.

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