Post-Doc
Joined the lab: November 2023
Background and Current Projects: I graduated in Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the University of Dundee, performing my honours research project in Professor Ian Gilbert’s lab. During my undergraduate degree I worked in the labs of Professor Ronald Hay and Professor Malcolm White characterising ubiquitinating proteins and DNA exicision repair protein mutants, respectively. I was also worked as a research intern in Professor Karsten Weis’s lab at ETH Zürich, looking at in vivo imaging of mRNA export and phase transition of mRNA-protein heterocomplexes by microscopy. For my doctoral research, I explored the potential of biocatalytic synthesis for novel aminoglycoside antibiotics, developing an efficient synthetic route to novel compounds with Professor John Ward and Professor Helen Hailes. I then stayed for a post-doctoral position developing a high-throughput automated platform for compostable plastic degrading enzyme discovery.
During my postdoc I will be working on a collaborative postdoctoral project between AstraZeneca and Hollfelder lab, where I will be working on enzyme evolution for gene therapy applications, focusing on in-vitro directed evolution of nuclease enzymes as well as discovery and characterization of natural nucleases from metagenome.
Interests: I am interested in two main things; biocatalysis and pharmaceuticals. I am mainly interested in developing sustainable and cost-effective synthetic methods for antibiotics and other high-value pharmaceuticals. I additionally, I am interested in utilising plastic waste streams for either closed loop recycling or upcycling to higher value products. More broadly, I am interested in bacterial secondary biosynthetic pathways, directed evolution, biocatalyst design and high-throughput screening methodologies.
Selected Publications
[1] Stojanovski, G., Hailes, H. C. & Ward, J. M. (2022) Facile and selective N-alkylation of gentamicin antibiotics via chemoenzymatic synthesis. Green Chemistry, 24,DOI 10.1039/d2gc03600b
[2] Stojanovski, G., Dobrijevic, D., Hailes, H. C. & Ward, J. M. (2020) Identification and catalytic properties of new epoxide hydrolases from the genomic data of soil bacteria. Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 139, 109592.10.1016/j.enzmictec.2020.109592
[3] Ambrose-Dempster, E., Leipold, L., Dobrijevic, D., Bawn, M., Carter, E. M., Stojanovski, G., Sheppard, T.D., Jeffries, J. W. E., Ward, J. M., Hailes, H. C. (2023) Mechanoenzymatic reactions for the hydrolysis of PET. RSC Advances, 13, DOI: 10.1039/d3ra01708g.
[4] Kamrad, S., Grossbach, J., Rodriguez-Lopez, M., Mulleder, M., Townsend, S., Cappelletti, V., Stojanovski, G., Correia-Melo, C., Picotti, P., Beyer, A., Ralser, M. & Bähler., J. (2020) Pyruvate kinase variant of fission yeast tunes carbon metabolism, cell regulation, grown and stress response. Molecular Systems Biology, 16, e9270.10.15252/msb.20199270
