Professor Gary Jones

Director of Research Leeds Beckett University

  • Leeds West Yorkshire

Professor Gary Jones’ research focus has been on the use of lower eukaryotic organisms to study aspects of cellular stress.

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Biography

Gary joined Leeds Beckett in February 2016. He has held academic and postdoctoral research positions at Maynooth University, National Institutes of Health, University College London and Swansea University. He obtained a BSc (Hons) Genetics and PhD from University of Liverpool.

Since embarking on a PhD in 1991 Gary’s research focus has been on the use of lower eukaryotic organisms, such as yeast and other fungi, to study aspects of cellular stress. His research expertise is in molecular biology, microbiology and genetics. During his PhD and postdoctoral training he utilized Aspergillus nidulans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae [baker’s yeast] to study DNA repair mechanisms and cellular responses to stresses such as heat shock. Due to the conservation of such molecular responses between diverse species, the findings from studies on simple model organisms such as baker’s yeast are also applicable to more complex cellular systems such as mammals.

Following postdoctoral training Gary established his own research group in 2004 at Maynooth University. He maintained a productive research team producing consistent high-level research outputs and attracting significant competitive research funding from national and international sources. He has an excellent track record of successfully graduating PhD students and high-quality research supervision. During his career Gary’s research has been published in high-impact international bioscience journals such as Cell, PNAS, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Pathogens, Nucleic Acids Research and Genome Research amongst others.

Currently Gary’s research is focused on two broad areas i) deciphering the role of the ubiquitous stress response protein Hsp70 in diverse cellular functions, and ii) developing new therapeutic strategies to combat hard to treat fungal diseases, such as invasive aspergillosis. His research involves multidisciplinary approaches involving molecular biology, genetics, microbiology, biochemistry, biophysics, computational biology, genomics, proteomics and mass spectrometry. To utilize such diverse technologies he has established an extensive collaboration network with leading researchers based in Ireland, France, Spain, China and the USA.

Industry Expertise

Research
Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise

Microbiology
Cellular Stress
Biomedical Sciences
Genetics
Molecular Biology

Education

University of Liverpool

Ph.D.

Molecular Biology

1995

University of Liverpool

B.S.

Genetics

1991

Languages

  • English

Articles

Gliotoxin-mediated bacterial growth inhibition is caused by specific metal ion depletion

Scientific Reports

2023

Overcoming antimicrobial resistance represents a formidable challenge and investigating bacterial growth inhibition by fungal metabolites may yield new strategies. Although the fungal non-ribosomal peptide gliotoxin (GT) is known to exhibit antibacterial activity, the mechanism(s) of action are unknown, although reduced gliotoxin (dithiol gliotoxin; DTG) is a zinc chelator. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that GT synergises with vancomycin to inhibit growth of Staphylococcus aureus.

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Gliotoxin and related metabolites as zinc chelators: implications and exploitation to overcome antimicrobial resistance

Essays in Biochemistry

2023

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global problem and threat to humanity. The search for new antibiotics is directed towards targeting of novel microbial systems and enzymes, as well as augmenting the activity of pre-existing antimicrobials. Sulphur-containing metabolites (e.g., auranofin and bacterial dithiolopyrrolones [e.g., holomycin]) and Zn2+-chelating ionophores (PBT2) have emerged as important antimicrobial classes.

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A Single Aspergillus fumigatus Gene Enables Ergothioneine Biosynthesis and Secretion by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

2022

The naturally occurring sulphur-containing histidine derivative, ergothioneine (EGT), exhibits potent antioxidant properties and has been proposed to confer human health benefits. Although it is only produced by select fungi and prokaryotes, likely to protect against environmental stress, the GRAS organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae does not produce EGT naturally. Herein, it is demonstrated that the recombinant expression of a single gene, Aspergillus fumigatus egtA, in S. cerevisiae results in EgtA protein presence which unexpectedly confers complete EGT biosynthetic capacity.

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