Darragh O'Brien
Ph.D.
Head of Structural & Mechanistic Proteomics
Biosketch
Darragh O’Brien is a senior researcher in Translational Proteomics at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, where he utilises biological mass spectrometry (MS) approaches to characterise and decipher mechanisms of human disease. His interests lie in how protein intrinsic disorder and post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation and ubiquitination contribute to protein function and disease, with a focus on Alzheimer's Disease (AD), neurodegeneration, and dementia. Prior to this, Dr O’Brien spent several years as a researcher at Institut Pasteur, where he used integrative structural biology workflows for the characterisation of protein conformational dynamics following protein and ligand binding, and membrane insertion. This followed post-doctoral studies at University College London and a PhD programme in Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, which he graduated from in 2011, and which was supervised by Professor Sir Simon Lovestone. For his thesis project, Darragh developed quantitative proteomic and MS strategies for the discovery and validation of candidate plasma and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of AD. Dr O'Brien received an Honours Degree in Biochemistry from University College Dublin in 2004, where his undergraduate thesis looked at mechanisms of amyloid processing in AD, under the guidance of Professor Dominic Walsh. Between the years 2005 and 2011, Dr O'Brien was also employed as a researcher at Proteome Sciences Plc in London, developing proteomic strategies for drug target discovery in CNS-related disorders.
Darragh heads the newly established Structural & Mechanistic Proteomics laboratory within the Nuffield Department of Medicine, which uses Hydrogen-Deuterium eXchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX-MS) to characterise the structure and conformational dynamics of biological systems.
For collaboration enquiries, please contact darragh.obrien@ndm.ox.ac.uk.
Recent publications
-
Tau depletion in human neurons mitigates Aβ-driven toxicity.
Journal article
Ng B. et al, (2024), Molecular psychiatry
-
USP16 is an ISG15 cross-reactive deubiquitinase that targets pro-ISG15 and ISGylated proteins involved in metabolism
Journal article
Gan J. et al, (2023), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120
-
Structural Premise of Selective Deubiquitinase USP30 Inhibition by Small-Molecule Benzosulfonamides
Journal article
O'Brien DP. et al, (2023), Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, 22, 100609 - 100609
-
USP16 is an ISG15 cross-reactive deubiquitinase targeting a subset of metabolic pathway-related proteins
Preprint
Gan J. et al, (2023)
-
Deep Proteomics Network and Machine Learning Analysis of Human Cerebrospinal Fluid in Japanese Encephalitis Virus Infection
Journal article
Bharucha T. et al, (2023), Journal of Proteome Research, 22, 1614 - 1629