Sarah O'Connor
{{short description|American molecular biologist}}
{{distinguish|Sarah Connor (disambiguation){{!}}Sarah Connor}}
{{Infobox scientist
| nationality = American
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRS|size=100}}
| workplaces = John Innes Centre, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
| awards = {{unbulleted list|
Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry|
Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry|
Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award}}
| known_for = plant biosynthesis, enzymology, mutagenesis
| website = https://www.sarahoconnor.org/
| doctoral_advisor = Barbara Imperiali
}}
Sarah E. O'Connor {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRS}} is an American natural product chemist working to understand the molecular machinery involved in assembling important plant natural products – vinblastine, morphine, iridoids, secologanin – and how changing the enzymes involved in this pathway lead to diverse analogs. She was a Project Leader at the John Innes Centre in the UK between 2011 and 2019. O'Connor was appointed by the Max Planck Society in 2018 to head the Department of Natural Product Biosynthesis at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, taking up her role during 2019.{{Cite web|url=http://www.ice.mpg.de/ext/index.php?id=shortnews2018|title=Sarah O'Connor will become new director at our institute|access-date=2018-12-20}}
Education
O'Connor received her Ph.D. working with Barbara Imperiali on conformational effects induced by large proteins at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).{{Cite journal|last=Viegas|first=J.|date=2013-12-02|title=Profile of Barbara Imperiali|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|language=en|volume=110|issue=52|pages=20850–20851|doi=10.1073/pnas.1321020110|pmid=24297879|pmc=3876202|bibcode=2013PNAS..11020850V |issn=0027-8424|doi-access=free}} She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, where she worked on epothiolone biosynthesis with Professor Christopher T. Walsh.{{Cite journal|last1=O’Connor|first1=Sarah E.|last2=Chen|first2=Huawei|last3=Walsh|first3=Christopher|date=2002|title=Enzymatic Assembly of Epothilones: The EpoC Subunit and Reconstitution of the EpoA-ACP/B/C Polyketide and Nonribosomal Peptide Interfaces|journal=Biochemistry|language=EN|volume=41|issue=17|pages=5685–5694|doi=10.1021/bi020006w|pmid=11969430 }} She later returned to MIT as a professor from 2003 to 2010.
Research
O'Connor's work involves detailed study of many important species of medicinally-relevant plants: Rauvolfia serpentina, Catharanthus roseus, and Aspergillus japonicus. Her lab utilizes bioinformatics and enzyme characterization to uncover new pathways by which plants construct these molecules. Insertion of new enzymes, for example a halogenase{{Cite journal|last1=Glenn|first1=Weslee S.|last2=Nims|first2=Ezekiel|last3=O’Connor|first3=Sarah E.|date=2011-12-07|title=Reengineering a Tryptophan Halogenase To Preferentially Chlorinate a Direct Alkaloid Precursor|journal=Journal of the American Chemical Society|language=EN|volume=133|issue=48|pages=19346–19349|doi=10.1021/ja2089348|pmid=22050348|issn=0002-7863}} or oxidase{{Cite journal|last1=Caputi|first1=Lorenzo|last2=Franke|first2=Jakob|last3=Farrow|first3=Scott C.|last4=Chung|first4=Khoa|last5=Payne|first5=Richard M. E.|last6=Nguyen|first6=Trinh-Don|last7=Dang|first7=Thu-Thuy T.|last8=Carqueijeiro|first8=Inês Soares Teto|last9=Koudounas|first9=Konstantinos|date=2018-05-03|title=Missing enzymes in the biosynthesis of the anticancer drug vinblastine in Madagascar periwinkle|journal=Science|volume=360|issue=6394|language=en|pages=1235–1239|doi=10.1126/science.aat4100|issn=0036-8075|pmid=29724909|bibcode=2018Sci...360.1235C |doi-access=free}} results in novel variants of the molecules not found in nature.
Awards and honors
- Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry 2011
- Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award 2011
- Wain Medal 2013{{Cite web|url=https://www.kent.ac.uk/bio/news/wain/|title=Wain medal lecture – School of Biosciences – University of Kent|website=www.kent.ac.uk|access-date=2018-10-18}}
- Elected to European Molecular Biology Organization 2017{{Cite web|url=https://www.jic.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2017/06/sarah-oconnor-elected-embo/#|title=Sarah O'Connor elected into EMBO {{!}} John Innes Centre|last=Sponge|first=Creative|website=www.jic.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-10-17}}
- European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant 2018
- Royal Society of Chemistry Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry 2019{{cite web |url=https://www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/Awards/PerkinPrize/2019-Winner.asp |title=RSC Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry 2019 Winner |publisher=Royal Society of Chemistry |date=2019 |access-date=7 May 2019 }}
- Honorary Member of the Faculty of Chemistry and Earth Sciences at University of Jena 2022{{Cite web|url=https://www.chemgeo.uni-jena.de/fakultaet/zentrale-informationen/aktuelle-meldungen/zwei-neue-ehrenmitglieder|title=Zwei neue Ehrenmitglieder|language=de|access-date=2023-10-30}}
- Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products of the American Chemical Society 2021{{Cite web|url=https://cen.acs.org/people/awards/ACS-2022-national-award-winners/99/i35/#|title=ACS 2022 national award winners|access-date=2021-10-04}}
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2023{{Cite web|url=https://www.dfg.de/service/presse/pressemitteilungen/2022/pressemitteilung_nr_50/index.html/#|title=Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz-Preise 2023|access-date=2022-12-08}}
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Society 2023{{Cite web |title=Sarah O'connor |url=https://royalsociety.org/people/sarah-o%27connor-36233/ |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=royalsociety.org}}
- Docteure honoris causa, Université de Tours, France, 2024{{Cite web|url=https://www.univ-tours.fr/sarah-ellen-oconnor|title=Sarah Ellen O'Connor|access-date=2024-11-08}}
- Prelog Medal and Lectureship, Laboratory of Organic Chemistry of ETH Zurich 2024{{Cite web|url=https://chab.ethz.ch/en/research/institutes/LOC/prelog-lecture.html|title=Prelog Lecture|access-date=2024-11-08}}
- Elected Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina 2024 [https://www.leopoldina.org/mitgliederverzeichnis/mitglieder/member/Member/show/sarah-oconnor/Member page at https://www.leopoldina.org], retrieved on November 8, 2024
References
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Category:American molecular biologists
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:American women biologists
Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty
Category:American women academics
Category:21st-century American women