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Dr. Joanna Mcgouran

Assistant Professor (Chemistry)
BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES INSTITUTE

 jmcgoura@tcd.ie

 3531896 1422


Biography

Joanna obtained a 1st class MChem Degree from the University of Oxford. Following this 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 work with Professor Tom Brown 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 the position of Schuler Assistant Professor in Translational Organic Chemistry.

Research Tags

  Activity-Based protein profiling   Biochemistry, Nucleic Acid   Bioconjugation   BIOORGANIC CHEMISTRY   Cellular Biology   Epigenetics   Mass Spectrometry   Organic chemistry   Proteins, enzymology and protein engineering   Proteomes, proteomics

Research Projects

 Disulfide modification for enhanced stability and selective delivery
 A New Approach to Inhibiting Nucleotide Excision Repair Using Cyclic Peptides
 Activity based probes for DNA processing enzymes based on modified Cytosine
 New Probes for active enzymes
 Oligonucleotide probes to study the 5' exonuclease SNM1A and its function in DNA damage repair

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Representations

Details Date
Member of the Early Career Advisory Board for the American Chemical Society's new journal ACS Bio & Med Chem Au 2022
Swiss National Foundation evaluation committee of the SNSF special call on coronaviruses 2020
External Examiner, PhD thesis: University of Oxford, University of Glasgow. Masters thesis: University College Dublin. 2019
Reviewer for several international chemistry journals including publications from the American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, Wiley, Elsevier, MDPI and Sage 2019
Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Group Committee. 2021
Reviewer for UKRI grants including EPSRC and MRC 2020

Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

Details Date From Date To
Royal Society of Chemistry 2015 Present
The Irish Mass Spectrometry Society 2019 Present
Visiting assistant professor, University College Dublin 2022 2026
American Chemical Society 2021 Present
Calvert, S.H. and McGouran, J.F., Rapid capture of small peptide binders, Nature Reviews Chemistry, 7, (8), 2023, p534-535 , Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Fay, E.M. and Newton, A. and Berney, M. and El-Sagheer, A.H. and Brown, T. and McGouran, J.F., Two-Step Validation Approach for Tools To Study the DNA Repair Enzyme SNM1A, ChemBioChem, 24, (13), 2023, Notes: [cited By 1], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Arbour, C.A. and Fay, E.M. and McGouran, J.F. and Imperiali, B., Deploying solid-phase synthesis to access thymine-containing nucleoside analogs that inhibit DNA repair nuclease SNM1A, Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, 21, (28), 2023, p5873-5879 , Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Fay, E.M. and McGouran, J.F., Exploring the binding pockets of the DNA damage repair enzyme SNM1A through nucleobase modification, Results in Chemistry, 5, (100939), 2023, Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Berney, M. and Manoj, M.T. and Fay, E.M. and McGouran, J.F., 5†-Phosphorylation Increases the Efficacy of Nucleoside Inhibitors of the DNA Repair Enzyme SNM1A, ChemMedChem, 17, (5), 2022, Notes: [cited By 1], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
DÃŒrr, E.-M. and McGouran, J.F., Probing the binding requirements of modified nucleosides with the dna nuclease snm1a, Molecules, 26, (2), 2021, Notes: [cited By 3], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Taylor, N.C. and McGouran, J.F., Investigating eosin Y as a photocatalyst for the radical-dependent activity-based probing of deubiquitinating enzymes, Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, 19, (10), 2021, p2177-2181 , Notes: [cited By 1], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Berney, M. and Doherty, W. and Jauslin, W.T. and T Manoj, M. and DÃŒrr, E.-M. and McGouran, J.F., Synthesis and evaluation of squaramide and thiosquaramide inhibitors of the DNA repair enzyme SNM1A, Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, 46, (116369), 2021, Notes: [cited By 4], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
McKenna, S.M. and Fay, E.M. and McGouran, J.F., Flipping the Switch: Innovations in Inducible Probes for Protein Profiling, ACS Chemical Biology, 16, (12), 2021, p2719-2730 , Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Taylor, N.C. McGouran, J.F., Strategies to Target Specific Components of the Ubiquitin Conjugation/Deconjugation Machinery, Frontiers in Chemistry, 7, (914), 2020, p1-9 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text
  

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Joanna McGouran, Proteins and DNA-New Tools through Chemical Modification, Research seminar, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Target Discovery Institute, 28/02, 2020, Dr Nicola Ternette, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Joanna McGouran & Neil Taylor, 'Protein Labelling', Barker Brettell LLP, 2020, 1 November 2022, Patent, SUBMITTED
Joanna McGouran, Latent probes for the covalent capture of active enzymes, RSC Ireland Regional Meeting , UCD, Ireland, 7th June, 2019, Prof. Pat Guiry, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Joanna McGouran, Activatable probes targeting deubiquitinating enzymes, Activity-Based Protein Profiling 2019, Leuven, Belgium, 27th March, 2019, Prof. Martin Witte & Prof. Steven Verhelst, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Joanna McGouran, DNA modification to examine 5' exonuclease activity, The 18th RSC Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Group (CBBG) Firbush conference, Edinburgh, UK, 6-8th September, 2019, Oral Presentation, PRESENTED
Joanna McGouran, Chemical proteomics: Protein modification to unravel biological function, RSC Organic Symposium , TCD, Ireland, 18th May, 2018, Prof. Eoin Scanlan, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Joanna McGouran, 5' oligonucleotide modification for enhanced nuclease binding, Young Investigators Workshop, Merton College, Oxford, UK, 23-25th August, 2018, Prof. Veronique Grouverner, Invited Talk, PRESENTED

  

Awards and Honours

Award Date
MA University of Oxford 2009
Scholarship, University of Oxford 2002-5