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Elaine Dunleavy

Research Fellow PhD

Contact Details

Research Fellow
Room 126 Biochemistry
School of Natural Sciences
NUI Galway

T: Ext. 4046
E: ELAINE.DUNLEAVY@nuigalway.ie
 
researcher

Biography

Dr. Elaine Dunleavy is a cell and molecular biologist interested in the regulation of centromeres, key chromosomal loci that oversee proper chromosome segregation during cell division. Dr. Dunleavy graduated from the National University of Ireland, Galway with a BSc in Biotechnology in 2002. She received a Wellcome Trust Four Year Studentship to complete her PhD in Life Sciences at the University of Edinburgh in 2007, under the supervision of Prof. Robin Allshire. During her PhD, using fission yeast as a model system, Dr. Dunleavy began to develop her now long-standing interest in centromere biology. She carried out her postdoctoral research at the Curie Institute in Paris in the laboratory of Dr. Genevieve Almouzni, where she identified the key human centromere assembly factor HJURP, a major finding in the field. In 2010, Dr. Dunleavy received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program to investigate centromere assembly mechanisms in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in the laboratory of Dr.  Gary Karpen at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley.  Since June 2013, Dr. Dunleavy is a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellow in Basic Biomedical Science, at the Centre for Chromosome Biology (CCB) at the National University of Ireland, Galway. This Fellowship is made in partnership with Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Health Research Board (HRB) of Ireland. At the CCB, Dr. Dunleavy continues to use the fruit fly as an experimental system to explore chromosome segregation mechanisms during meiosis, the special type of cell division that gives rise to gametes (eggs and sperm).

Peer Reviewed Journals

  Year Publication
(2005) 'Centromeric chromatin makes its mark'
Dunleavy EM, Pidoux AL, Allshire RC (2005) 'Centromeric chromatin makes its mark'. Trends In Cell Biology, [Details]
(2007) 'A NASP (N1/N2)-related protein, Sim3, binds CENP-A and is required for its deposition at fission yeast centromeres'
Dunleavy EM, Pidoux AL, Monet M, Bonilla C, Richardson W, Hamilton GL, Ekwall K, McLaughlin PJ, Allshire RC (2007) 'A NASP (N1/N2)-related protein, Sim3, binds CENP-A and is required for its deposition at fission yeast centromeres'. Molecular Cell, [Details]
(2008) 'A DNA polymerase α accessory protein, Mcl1, is required for propagation of centromeric structures in fission yeast'
Natsume T, Tsutsui Y, Sutani T, Dunleavy EM, Pidoux AL, Iwasaki H, Shirahige K, Allshire RC, Yamao F (2008) 'A DNA polymerase α accessory protein, Mcl1, is required for propagation of centromeric structures in fission yeast'. Plos One, [Details]
(2009) 'Epigenetic inheritance during the cell cycle'
Probst AV*, Dunleavy EM*, Almouzni G (2009) 'Epigenetic inheritance during the cell cycle'. Nature Reviews Genetics, [Details]
(2009) 'HJURP is a cell cycle dependent maintenance and deposition factor of CENP-A at centromeres'
Dunleavy EM, Roche D, Tagami H, Lacoste N, Ray-Gallet D, Nakamura Y, Daigo Y, Nakatani Y, Almouzni-Pettinotti, G (2009) 'HJURP is a cell cycle dependent maintenance and deposition factor of CENP-A at centromeres'. Cell, [Details]
(2012) 'The cell cycle timing of centromeric chromatin assembly in Drosophila meiosis is distinct from mitosis yet requires CAL1 and CENP-C'
Dunleavy EM, Beier NL, Gorgescu W, Tang J, Costes SV, Karpen GH (2012) 'The cell cycle timing of centromeric chromatin assembly in Drosophila meiosis is distinct from mitosis yet requires CAL1 and CENP-C'. Plos Biology, [Details]
(2013) 'Solo or Doppio: How many CENP-As make a centromeric nucleosome?'
Dunleavy EM, Zhang W, Karpen, GH (2013) 'Solo or Doppio: How many CENP-As make a centromeric nucleosome?'. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, [Details]