Academic Career and Research Areas
Dr. de Oliveira Mann studied biochemistry at TUM (2011). During her PhD at the LMU, Gene Center (2012-2016), she studied the functions of nucleotidyltransferase (NTase) family members. As a postdoc at Harvard Medical School/ Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2016-2019), she worked on STING-dependent immune responses. Later as a postdoc at LMU, her research focused on how the DNA immune sensor cGAS discriminates between self and foreign DNA. Dr. de Oliveira Mann joined the Institute of Virology at TUM as an Emmy Noether group leader in August 2021.
Dr. de Oliveira Mann studies how our immune system and its receptors distinguish between self and non-self, focusing on 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.
Awards
- Emmy-Noether Research Group, German Research Foundation (since 2021)
- Cancer Research Institute: Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017–2021)
Key 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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