Oxygen homeostasis has been a constant challenge to life on earth for at least the last ~600 million years, for which a number of distinct solutions have likely separately evolved. In mammals, the current repertoire of oxygen sensing mechanisms appears insufficient to explain the complexity of responses observed, which vary enormously in timing, magnitude and sensitivity. Our group is interested in defining new molecular mechanisms of oxygen sensing and matching these with unresolved physiological responses to hypoxia. In this talk I will cover our discovery of a new oxygen sensing pathway transduced through enzymatic N-terminal cysteine dioxygenation, and our efforts to better understand its role in integrated mammalian physiology, focusing on the regulation of cardiovascular system in response to hypoxia.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

I received a B.Sc. in Physiology from King’s College London, where I then undertook a Ph.D. in vascular physiology with Giovanni Mann, exploring responses to low oxygen conditions in endothelial cells. I then joined Peter Ratcliffe’s lab in the Nuffield Department of Medicine in Oxford in 2018 to work on novel hypoxia signalling pathways. In 2020, I took up a Junior Research Fellowship in medical sciences at St. Catherine’s College, and in 2025 I moved to DPAG to start my own lab, funded by a BHF Intermediate Basic Sciences Research Fellowship and Wellcome Discovery Award.