Douwe van Sinderen
Name: Prof. Douwe van Sinderen
Position: Associate Professor
T: 
353 (0)21 4901365
F: 353 (0)21 4903101
E: d.vansinderen@ucc.ie
Biography
Academic Career
1988: BSc in Biochemistry, RijksUniversiteit Groningen (RUG), The Netherlands.
1990: MSc in Molecular Biology, RUG, The Netherlands.
1994: PhD in Molecular Genetics, RUG, The Netherlands.
Additional Positions and Awards
1994: Postdoctoral scientist, Department of Molecular Genetics, RUG.
1994-96: Senior Research Scientist, National Food Biotechnology Centre, UCC.
1996-98: EMBO long-term Fellow, Department of Microbiology, UCC.
1998-2004: College Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, UCC.
2004-2008: Senior Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, UCC.
2008-present: Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology, UCC.
Teaching areas
- Food Science
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics of prokaryotes
- Genomics of prokaryotes
Research interests and expertise
- Global gene regulation in bacteria through environmental sensing systems
- Molecular biology of bacteriophage infecting lactic acid bacteria
- Genomics and systems biology of lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria
- Metabolic engineering of lactic acid bacteria
- Probiotic functionality of bifidobacteria
Research
Selected Recent Publications
Pokusaeva, K., Neves, A.R., Zomer, A., O’Connell-Motherway, M., MacSharry, J., Curley, P., Fitzgerald, G.F. and D. van Sinderen. (2009) Ribose utilization by the human commensal Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003. Microbiol. Biotech., in press.
Zomer, A., Fernandez, M., Kearney, B., Fitzgerald, G.F., Ventura, M. and D. van Sinderen (2009) An interactive regulatory network controls stress response in Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003. J. Bacteriol. 191: 7039-7049.
Burgess, K., Smid, E. and D. van Sinderen . (2009) Bacterial vitamin B2, B11 and B12 overproduction: an overview. J. Food Microbiol. 133: 1-7.
Turroni, F., Marchesi, J., Foroni, E., Gueimonde, M., Shanahan, F., Margolles, A., Van Sinderen, D. and M. Ventura. (2009) Microbiomic analysis of the bifidobacterial population in the human distal gut. ISME J. 3: 745-751.
O’Connell-Motherway, M., O’Driscoll, J., Fitzgerald, G.F. and D. van Sinderen. (2009) Overcoming the restriction barrier to plasmid transformation and targeted mutagenesis in Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2: 321-332.
Ventura, M., O’Flaherty, S., Claesson, M.J., Turroni, F., Klaenhammer, T.R., Van Sinderen, D. and P.W. O’Toole. (2009) Genome-scale analyses of health-promoting bacteria: probiogenomics. Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 7: 61-71.
Mahony, J., McGrath, S., Fitzgerald, G.F. and D. van Sinderen. (2008) Identification and characterization of lactococcal-prophage-carried superinfection exclusion genes. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74: 6206-6215.
O’Connell-Motherway, M., Fitzgerald, G.F., Neirynck, S., Ryan, S., Steidler, L. and D. van Sinderen. (2008) Characterization of ApuB, an extracellular type II amylopullulanase from Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74: 6271-6279.
Sciara, G., Blangy, S., Siponen, M., McGrath, S., Van Sinderen, D., Tegoni, M., Cambillau, C. and V. Campanacci. (2008) A topological model of the base plate of lactococcal phage Tuc2009. J. Biol. Chem. 283: 2716-2723.
Rouse, S., Hartnett, D., Vaughan, A. and D. van Sinderen. (2008) Lactic acid bacteria with potential to eliminate fungal spoilage in foods. J. Appl. Microbiol., 104: 915-923.
Ventura, M., Canchaya, C., Tauch, A., Chandra, G., Fitzgerald, G.F., Chater, K. and D. van Sinderen. (2007) Genomics of Actinobacteria: tracing the evolutionary history of an ancient phylum. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 71:495-548.
Research funding and grants
Funding has been received through various public funding agencies such as the European Commission, EMBO, Higher Education Authority (through various PRTLI funding rounds), the Irish Department of Agriculture, Irish Health Research Board, Enterprise Ireland, BioResearch Ireland, the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET), a number of non-profit organizations and Science Foundation Ireland, as well as various industrial sources. Current research is supported by, among others, a Science Foundation Ireland Principal Investigator grant and a SFI CSET, called the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre.
Research Groups and collaborators
The current research group hosts over 15 scientists, of which 6 postdoctoral scientists, a mixture of PhD & MSc students, plus two research assistants. The research groups collaborates with a variety of researchers in Italy, France and The Netherlands.
Research Projects in the group
The main research areas in the group relate to the comparative and functional genomics of bifidobacteria in order to determine how these commensal micro organisms interact with their human host, and the molecular biology of bacteriophages that infect lactic acid bacteria, aimed at understanding how these bacterial viruses recognize and infect their hosts, which are crucial in the production of many dairy products.