Protein citrullination in cell physiology and disease

Maria is a biomedical scientist who has previously worked on tumour suppression, pluripotency and chromatin biology. She is interested in understanding protein regulation by post-translational modification, and her current research focuses on citrullination, a poorly-studied post-translational amino acid conversion. Abnormal citrullination is a pathological feature of diseases such as autoimmunity, neurodegeneration and cancer. Maria is using her Fellowship to set up an independent laboratory at the MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine to study the molecular events that control citrullination, how it modulates protein function, and its impact on cell physiology and disease.