User:Alicia Lammerts van Bueren

Alicia Lammerts van Bueren obtained her BSc in Biochemistry in 2003 from the University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada) and in 2008 completed her PhD in Biochemistry at UVic under the supervision of Dr. Alisdair Boraston. Her PhD investigated mechanisms of glycoside hydrolase virulence factors (specifically GH13) of Streptococcus pneumoniae [1, 2], as well as the binding mechanisms of several carbohydrate-binding module families and their interactions with plant and bacterial cell wall polysaccharides (eg: see [3]). She then undertook an EMBO and NSERC funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of York (York, UK) in the lab of Prof. Gideon Davies to study the enzymatic mechanism of GH29 retaining fucosidases [4, 5], as well as medically important glycosyltransferases. After a brief exit from the carbohydrate field to learn the technique of Cryo-Electron Microscopy at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (Amsterdam, NL), she is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Groningen (Groningen, NL) with Prof. Lubbert Dijkhuizen. Her primary research focuses on the importance of carbohydrate modifications in regulating human microbiome populations and investigating the properties of novel carbohydrate-based prebiotic compounds.

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1. van Bueren AL, Higgins M, Wang D, Burke RD, and Boraston AB. (2007). Identification and structural basis of binding to host lung glycogen by streptococcal virulence factors. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2007;14(1):76-84. DOI:10.1038/nsmb1187 |
2. Lammerts van Bueren A, Ficko-Blean E, Pluvinage B, Hehemann JH, Higgins MA, Deng L, Ogunniyi AD, Stroeher UH, El Warry N, Burke RD, Czjzek M, Paton JC, Vocadlo DJ, and Boraston AB. (2011). The conformation and function of a multimodular glycogen-degrading pneumococcal virulence factor. Structure. 2011;19(5):640-51. DOI:10.1016/j.str.2011.03.001 |
3. Montanier C, van Bueren AL, Dumon C, Flint JE, Correia MA, Prates JA, Firbank SJ, Lewis RJ, Grondin GG, Ghinet MG, Gloster TM, Herve C, Knox JP, Talbot BG, Turkenburg JP, Kerovuo J, Brzezinski R, Fontes CM, Davies GJ, Boraston AB, and Gilbert HJ. (2009). Evidence that family 35 carbohydrate binding modules display conserved specificity but divergent function. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009;106(9):3065-70. DOI:10.1073/pnas.0808972106 |
4. Lammerts van Bueren A, Ardèvol A, Fayers-Kerr J, Luo B, Zhang Y, Sollogoub M, Blériot Y, Rovira C, and Davies GJ. (2010). Analysis of the reaction coordinate of alpha-L-fucosidases: a combined structural and quantum mechanical approach. J Am Chem Soc. 2010;132(6):1804-6. DOI:10.1021/ja908908q |
5. Lammerts van Bueren A, Popat SD, Lin CH, and Davies GJ. (2010). Structural and thermodynamic analyses of α-L-fucosidase inhibitors. Chembiochem. 2010;11(14):1971-4. DOI:10.1002/cbic.201000339 |