Professor Aga Gambus

Professor Aga Gambus

Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
Professor of DNA Metabolism
Wellcome Trust and Lister Fellow

Contact details

Address
Chromosomal Replication Laboratory
Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor Aga Gambus moved to Cancer Sciences in 2011 to start her independent research. She was awarded MRC Career Development Award and Birmingham Fellowship supporting her research into regulation of DNA replication through small protein modifiers: ubiquitin and SUMO.

Aga’s group discovered the first elements of the mechanism of replication machinery disassembly at termination of DNA replication. Due to this exciting novel discoveries Aga was awarded the Lister Institute Research Award in 2015 and Wellcome Trust Investigator Award in 2019 to continue her research on replisome unloading.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Cancer Research, University of Manchester, 2006
  • MSc in Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, 2002

Teaching

  • Tutor on “Genetic basis of cancer” within MBChB module ‘Cancer: Causes to Cures’.
  • BMedSc Year 3 course “DNA damage pathways in human disease”
  • BSc Biomedical Science Year 1 course: “Cellular Biochemistry and Biology”
  • Masterclass for MIBTP PhD students
  • Supervising PhD, masters, ERASMUS, summer and undergraduate students

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Gambus is interested in supervising doctoral research in the following areas:

Regulation of eukaryotic DNA replication
DNA replication and tumor development
Novel anticancer therapy targets essential for DNA replic

Other activities

  • Reviewer for grant funding bodies and journals.
  • Member of Panel V Research Area: Signalling in Biochemical Society
  • Member of The Biochemical Society, British Association for Cancer Research (BACR),  European Association for Cancer Research (EACR), British Society for Cell Biology (BSCB), EMBO Expert Women in Life Sciences (WiLS)
  • External PhD examiner

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Kingsley, G, Skagia, A, Passaretti, P, Fernandez-Cuesta, C, Reynolds-Winczura, A, Koscielniak, K & Gambus, A 2023, 'DONSON facilitates Cdc45 and GINS chromatin association and is essential for DNA replication initiation', Nucleic Acids Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad694

Scaramuzza, S, Jones, RM, Sadurni, MM, Reynolds-Winczura, A, Poovathumkadavil, D, Farrell, A, Natsume, T, Rojas, P, Cuesta, CF, Kanemaki, MT, Saponaro, M & Gambus, A 2023, 'TRAIP resolves DNA replication-transcription conflicts during the S-phase of unperturbed cells', Nature Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, 5071. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40695-y

Cvetković, M, Passaretti, P, Butryn, A, Reynolds-Winczura, A, Kingsley, G, Skagia, A, Fernandez Cuesta, C, Poovathumkadavil, D, George, R, Chauhan, A, Jhujh, S, Stewart, G, Gambus, A & Costa, A 2023, 'The structural mechanism of dimeric DONSON in replicative helicase activation', Molecular Cell, vol. 83, no. 22, pp. 4017-4031.e9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2023.09.029

Tarcan, Z, Poovathumkadavil, D, Skagia, A & Gambus, A 2022, 'The p97 segregase cofactor Ubxn7 facilitates replisome disassembly during S-phase', The Journal of biological chemistry, vol. 298, no. 8, 102234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2022.102234

Blakemore, D, Vilaplana-Lopera, N, Almaghrabi, R, Gonzalez, E, Moya, M, Ward, C, Murphy, G, Gambus, A, Petermann, E, Stewart, GS & García, P 2021, 'MYBL2 and ATM suppress replication stress in pluripotent stem cells', EMBO Reports, vol. 22, no. 5, e51120. https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.202051120

Hadzhiev, Y, Qureshi, HK, Wheatley, L, Cooper, L, Jasiulewicz, A, Van Nguyen, H, Wragg, JW, Poovathumkadavil, D, Conic, S, Bajan, S, Sik, A, Hutvàgner, G, Tora, L, Gambus, A, Fossey, JS & Müller, F 2019, 'A cell cycle-coordinated Polymerase II transcription compartment encompasses gene expression before global genome activation', Nature Communications, vol. 10, no. 1, 691, pp. 691. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08487-5

Moreno, SP, Jones, RM, Poovathumkadavil, D, Scaramuzza, S & Gambus, A 2019, 'Mitotic replisome disassembly depends on TRAIP ubiquitin ligase activity', Life Science Alliance, vol. 2, no. 2, e201900390. https://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.201900390

Sonnerville, R, Priego Moreno, S, Knebel, A, Johnson, C, Hastle, CJ, Gartner, A, Gambus, A & Labib, K 2017, 'CUL-2LRR-1 and UBXN-3 drive replisome disassembly during DNA replication termination and mitosis', Nature Cell Biology, vol. 19, pp. 468–479. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb3500

Chadha, GS, Gambus, A, Gillespie, PJ & Blow, JJ 2016, 'Xenopus Mcm10 is a CDK-substrate required for replication fork stability', Cell Cycle, vol. 15, no. 16, pp. 2183-2195. https://doi.org/10.1080/15384101.2016.1199305

Moreno, SP & Gambus, A 2015, 'Regulation of Unperturbed DNA Replication by Ubiquitylation', Genes, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 451-468. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes6030451

Bailey, R, Priego Moreno, S & Gambus, A 2015, 'Termination of DNA replication forks: "Breaking up is hard to do"', Nucleus (Austin), vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 187-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491034.2015.1035843

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Gambus, A 2018, Termination of Eukaryotic Replication Forks. in DNA Replication: From Old Principles to New Discoveries. vol. 1042, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol. 1042, Springer, pp. 163-187. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6955-0_8

Chapter

De Piccoli, G & Gambus, A 2016, Role of Small-Molecule Modifiers in Replication Initiation. in DL Kaplan (ed.), The Initiation of DNA Replication in Eukaryotes. Springer, pp. 343-370. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24696-3_17

Review article

Moreno, SP & Gambus, A 2020, 'Mechanisms of eukaryotic replisome disassembly', Biochemical Society Transactions, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 823-836. https://doi.org/10.1042/BST20190363

Working paper

Gambus, A, Moreno, SP, Jones, RM & Poovathumkadavil, D 2018 'Mitotic replisome disassembly in vertebrates' bioRxiv, pp. 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1101/418368

View all publications in research portal