Dr. Sandra de Macedo Ribeiro, Principal Investigator

Contact e-mail: sribeiro@ibmc.up.pt

Background:

Sandra de Macedo Ribeiro, Principal Investigator and Leader of the Protein Crystallography Group of IBMC (2009-present), was trained as a Biochemist (University of Porto, 1992) and did her PhD in Protein Crystallography (Technische Universität München, 1999) at the Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie (Martinsried, Germany). Over the last few years her research has focused on the structure-function relationships in disease-implicated enzymes, namely the ubiquitin hydrolase involved in Machado-Joseph's disease, ataxin-3

Selected publications:

   1. Nucleocytoplasmic Shuttling Activity of Ataxin-3. Macedo-Ribeiro S, Cortes L, Maciel P, Carvalho AL. PLoS ONE. 2009;4(6): e5834.
   2. Mycobacterium tuberculosis glucosyl-3-phosphoglycerate synthase: structure of a key enzyme in methylglucose lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis. Pereira PJ, Empadinhas N, Albuquerque L, Sá-Moura B, da Costa MS, Macedo-Ribeiro S. PLoS ONE. 2008;3(11):e3748.
   3. Isolation, cloning and structural characterisation of boophilin, a multifunctional Kunitz-type proteinase inhibitor from the cattle tick. Macedo-Ribeiro S, Almeida C, Calisto BM, Friedrich T, Mentele R, Stürzebecher J, Fuentes-Prior P, Pereira PJ. PLoS ONE. 2008 3(2):e1624.
   4. NEDD8: a new ataxin-3 interactor. Ferro A, Carvalho AL, Teixeira-Castro A, Almeida C, Tomé RJ, Cortes L, Rodrigues AJ, Logarinho E, Sequeiros J, Macedo-Ribeiro S, Maciel P. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2007 Nov;1773(11):1619-27.
   5. Towards a structural understanding of the fibrillization pathway in Machado-Joseph's disease: trapping early oligomers of non-expanded ataxin-3. Gales L, Cortes L, Almeida C, Melo CV, do Carmo Costa M, Maciel P, Clarke DT, Damas AM, Macedo-Ribeiro S. J Mol Biol. 2005 Oct 28;353(3):642-54.

Research group's website: http://www.ibmc.up.pt/index.php?id=382