Prof. Dr. Carina Baer de Oliveira Mann
Academic Career and Research Areas
Prof. de Oliveira Mann studies how our immune system and its receptors distinguish between self and non-self, focusing on Nucleotidyltransferases (NTases). Several uncharacterized human NTases and their products remain to be discovered, despite their importance in biological processes ranging from immunity to development. Her group aims to reveal the molecular function of these NTases and to discover novel nucleotide-based second messengers.
Prof. de Oliveira Mann studied biochemistry at TUM. During her PhD at the Gene Center of the LMU (2012-2016), she investigated the functions of members of the nucleotidyltransferase family. After a postdoc at Harvard Medical School/ Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2016-2019) and a second postdoc at LMU (2019-2021), Prof. de Oliveira Mann headed her Emmy-Noether group at TUM in the Institute of Virology since 2021. In 2023, she was appointed to the professorship of Biomolecular Cryo Electron Microscopy at TUM.
Awards
- ERC Starting Grant "NTasePro" (2023)
- FEBS Excellence Award (2022)
- Emmy-Noether Research Group, German Research Foundation (2021)
- Cancer Research Institute: Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017–2021)
Key Publications (all publications)
Michalski S*, de Oliveira Mann CC*, Stafford CA, Witte G, Bartho J, Lammens K, Hornung V, Hopfner K-P: Structural basis for sequestration and autoinhibition of cGAS by chromatin. Nature. 2020; 587: 678-682.
Abstractde Oliveira Mann CC, Orzalli MH, King DS, Kagan JC, Lee AS*, Kranzusch PJ*. Modular architecture of the STING C-terminal tail allows interferon and NF-κB signaling adaptation. Cell Reports. 2019; 27: 1165-1175. e5.
AbstractWhiteley AT, Eaglesham JB, de Oliveira Mann CC, Morehouse BR, Lowey B, Nieminen EA, Danilchanka O, King DS, Lee AS, Mekalanos JJ*, Kranzusch PJ*. Bacterial cGAS-like enzymes synthesize diverse nucleotide signals. Nature. 2019; 567: 194-199.
AbstractZhou W*, Whiteley AT*, de Oliveira Mann CC, Morehouse BR, Nowak RP, Fischer ES, Gray NS, Mekalanos JJ, Kranzusch PJ. Structure of the human cGAS–DNA complex reveals enhanced control of immune surveillance. Cell. 2018; 174: 300-311. e11.
Abstractde Oliveira Mann CC, Kiefersauer R, Witte G*, Hopfner K-P*. Structural and biochemical characterization of the cell fate determining nucleotidyltransferase fold protein MAB21L1. Scientific Reports. 2016; 6: 1-14.
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