Prof Jason Mercer PhD

Prof Jason Mercer

School of Biosciences
Professor of Virus Cell Biology

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 2685
Email
j.p.mercer@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@MercerLab
View my research portal
Address
Institute of Microbiology and Infection
Biosciences Building
Edgbaston
Birmingham

The Mercer Lab is interested in deciphering the complex interactions between poxviruses and their host cells during all stages of the infection cycle.

Qualifications

PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Medical College of Wisconsin, 2005

BA in Biological Sciences and Chemistry, Northern Illinois University, 1998

Biography

Jason Mercer received his PhD in Molecular Virology from the Medical College of Wisconsin in the laboratory of Prof. Paula Traktman. He then moved to Zurich, Switzerland to the lab of Prof. Ari Helenius for postdoctoral training. In 2014, Jason moved to the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, University College London as an MRC Programme Leader in Virus Cell Biology. In 2019, Jason joined the Institute of Microbiology and Infection where his group will continue to combine classic virology and cell biology with state-of the art technologies to investigate the complex interactions between poxviruses and their host cells.

Teaching

Prof Mercer will be involved in Undergraduate and Postgraduate teaching

Postgraduate supervision

Prof Mercer is not currently recruiting Doctoral (PhD) students or Masters students

Research

As obligate intracellular parasites viruses rely on host cell factors for all stages of their replication.  Our group is interested in deciphering the complex interactions that occur between poxviruses and their host cells during infection.

We investigate how viruses initiate their internalization by endocytosis, and how they utilize transport within cellular endocytic systems to their advantage.  We are also analyzing how the viral genome and accessory proteins escape into the cytosol, and how replication proceeds.

For these we combine cellular, molecular, and virological techniques with state-of-the-art technologies such as automated small compound and image-based siRNA screening, advanced proteomics, super-resolution, live cell microscopy, and electron microscopy. Our particular interests lie in uncovering novel mechanisms by which poxviruses subjugate host cell functions to facilitate their entry, replication, and spread.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Fisch, D, Yakimovich, A, Clough, B, Wright, J, Bunyan, M, Howell, M, Mercer, J & Frickel, E 2019, 'Defining host–pathogen interactions employing an artificial intelligence workflow', Elife, vol. 8, e40560. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.40560

Pereira, PM, Albrecht, D, Culley, S, Jacobs, C, Marsh, M, Mercer, J & Henriques, R 2019, 'Fix your membrane receptor imaging: Actin cytoskeleton and CD4 membrane organization disruption by chemical fixation', Frontiers in immunology, vol. 10, no. APR, 675. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2019.00675

Laine, RF, Tosheva, KL, Gustafsson, N, Gray, RDM, Almada, P, Albrecht, D, Risa, GT, Hurtig, F, Lindås, AC, Baum, B, Mercer, J, Leterrier, C, Pereira, PM, Culley, S & Henriques, R 2019, 'NanoJ: A high-performance open-source super-resolution microscopy toolbox', Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, vol. 52, no. 16, 163001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/ab0261

Novy, K, Kilcher, S, Omasits, U, Bleck, CKE, Beerli, C, Vowinckel, J, Martin, CK, Syedbasha, M, Maiolica, A, White, I, Mercer, J & Wollscheid, B 2018, 'Proteotype profiling unmasks a viral signalling network essential for poxvirus assembly and transcriptional competence', Nature Microbiology, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 588-599. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0142-6

Martínez-Martín, D, Fläschner, G, Gaub, B, Martin, S, Newton, R, Beerli, C, Mercer, J, Gerber, C & Müller, DJ 2017, 'Inertial picobalance reveals fast mass fluctuations in mammalian cells', Nature, vol. 550, no. 7677, pp. 500-505. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24288

Yakimovich, A, Huttunen, M, Zehnder, B, Coulter, LJ, Gould, V, Schneider, C, Kopf, M, McInnes, CJ, Greber, UF & Mercer, J 2017, 'Inhibition of poxvirus gene expression and genome replication by bisbenzimide derivatives', Journal of virology, vol. 91, no. 18, e00838-17. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.00838-17

Gray, RDM, Mercer, J & Henriques, R 2017, 'Open-source single-particle analysis for super-resolution microscopy with virusmapper', Journal of Visualized Experiments, vol. 2017, no. 122, e55471. https://doi.org/10.3791/55471

Yakimovich, A, Yakimovich, Y, Schmid, M, Mercer, J, Sbalzarini, IF & Greber, UF 2016, 'Infectio: A generic framework for computational simulation of virus transmission between cells', mSphere, vol. 1, no. 1, e00078-15. https://doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00078-15

Basagiannis, D, Murphy, C & Mercer, J 2016, 'VEGF induces signalling and angiogenesis by directing VEGFR2 internalisation via macropinocytosis', Journal of Cell Science, vol. 129, pp. 4091-4104. https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.188219

Gray, RDM, Beerli, C, Pereira, PM, Scherer, KM, Samolej, J, Bleck, CKE, Mercer, J & Henriques, R 2016, 'VirusMapper: Open-source nanoscale mapping of viral architecture through super-resolution microscopy', Scientific Reports, vol. 6, 29132. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep29132

Chapter

Fisch, D, Yakimovich, A, Clough, B, Mercer, J & Frickel, EM 2019, Image-Based Quantitation of Host Cell–Toxoplasma gondii Interplay Using HRMAn: A Host Response to Microbe Analysis Pipeline. in CJ Tonkin (ed.), Methods in Molecular Biology. vol. 2071, Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2071, Humana Press, pp. 411-433. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9857-9_21

Letter

Gray, RDM, Albrecht, D, Beerli, C, Huttunen, M, Cohen, GH, White, IJ, Burden, JJ, Henriques, R & Mercer, J 2019, 'Nanoscale polarization of the entry fusion complex of vaccinia virus drives efficient fusion', Nature Microbiology, vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 1636-1644. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0488-4

Beerli, C, Yakimovich, A, Kilcher, S, Reynoso, GV, Fläschner, G, Müller, DJ, Hickman, HD & Mercer, J 2019, 'Vaccinia virus hijacks EGFR signalling to enhance virus spread through rapid and directed infected cell motility', Nature Microbiology, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 216-225. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0288-2

Culley, S, Albrecht, D, Jacobs, C, Pereira, PM, Leterrier, C, Mercer, J & Henriques, R 2018, 'Quantitative mapping and minimization of super-resolution optical imaging artifacts', Nature Methods, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 263-266. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.4605

Working paper

Yoshida, N, Domart, M-C, Yakimovich, A, Mazon-Moya, MJ, Collinson, L, Mercer, J, Frickel, E-M & Mostowy, S 2019 'In vivo control of Toxoplasma gondii by zebrafish macrophages' bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/828624

View all publications in research portal