Nicola Burgess-Brown

Nicola Burgess-Brown

SGC UCL

Burgess-Brown

Nicola Burgess-Brown

n.burgess-brown@ucl.ac.uk
nburgessbrown@thesgc.org

Affiliations

University College London

Biography

Nicola Burgess-Brown was born in Northern Ireland. After graduating with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Ulster, she moved to SmithKline Beecham where she worked for 1 year before pursuing a PhD in Molecular Microbiology at Nottingham, also sponsored by SB. She then moved to Oxford GlycoSciences, in a team that aimed to identify and validate novel oncology targets for generating therapeutic antibodies. Nicola returned to academia to the University of Oxford to lead a team in Biotechnology within the Structural Genomics Consortium. Over the course of 17 years, working in a highly collaborative environment, her team developed cutting edge technologies and high-throughput (HTP) platforms to express a plethora of very challenging human proteins for structural and functional analyses. From September 2021, she led the Enzymology and Protein Engineering Team at Exact Sciences Innovation in Oxford, producing proteins for cancer diagnostic research. Since January 2024, she rejoined the SGC, working as a consultant (Chief Operating Officer, Protein Sciences) coordinating protein production across the 6 SGC sites and, from April 2025, became a Professorial Research Fellow in Protein Sciences at UCL. 

Research Areas

Nicola's research interests include developing novel technologies to express and purify proteins for many applications including drug discovery, cancer diagnostics and vaccine development. She is interested in finding new methods for tackling highly challenging proteins, and at Oxford, developed methodologies for expressing and purifying human integral membrane proteins. She is also keen to work on targets involved in antimicrobial resistance, having studied quorum sensing during her PhD. Throughout her career, she has enjoyed collaborative research which has enabled productive interactions with colleagues in academia and industry partners.

  • All Publications

2012

The PHD and chromo domains regulate the ATPase activity of the human chromatin remodeler CHD4.

Watson AA, Mahajan P, Mertens HD, Deery MJ, Zhang W, Pham P, Du X, Bartke T, Zhang W, Edlich C, Berridge G, Chen Y, Burgess-Brown NA, Kouzarides T, Wiechens N, Owen-Hughes T, Svergun DI, Gileadi O, Laue ED

J. Mol. Biol.. 2012-9-7 . 422(1):3-17 .doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2012.04.031

PMID: 22575888

Plant growth regulator daminozide is a selective inhibitor of human KDM2/7 histone demethylases.

Rose NR, Woon EC, Tumber A, Walport LJ, Chowdhury R, Li XS, King ON, Lejeune C, Ng SS, Krojer T, Chan MC, Rydzik AM, Hopkinson RJ, Che KH, Daniel M, Strain-Damerell C, Gileadi C, Kochan G, Leung IK, Dunford J, Yeoh KK, Ratcliffe PJ, Burgess-Brown N, von Delft F, Muller S, Marsden B, Brennan PE, McDonough MA, Oppermann U, Klose RJ, Schofield CJ, Kawamura A

J. Med. Chem.. 2012-7-26 . 55(14):6639-43 .doi: 10.1021/jm300677j

PMID: 22724510

Expressing the human proteome for affinity proteomics: optimising expression of soluble protein domains and in vivo biotinylation.

Keates T, Cooper CD, Savitsky P, Allerston CK, Phillips C, Hammarström M, Daga N, Berridge G, Mahajan P, Burgess-Brown NA, Müller S, Gräslund S, Gileadi O

N Biotechnol. 2012-6-15 . 29(5):515-25 .doi: 10.1016/j.nbt.2011.10.007

PMID: 22027370

2011

Human SNM1A and XPF-ERCC1 collaborate to initiate DNA interstrand cross-link repair.

Wang AT, Sengerová B, Cattell E, Inagawa T, Hartley JM, Kiakos K, Burgess-Brown NA, Swift LP, Enzlin JH, Schofield CJ, Gileadi O, Hartley JA, McHugh PJ

Genes Dev.. 2011-9-1 . 25(17):1859-70 .doi: 10.1101/gad.15699211

PMID: 21896658

High-performance liquid chromatography separation and intact mass analysis of detergent-solubilized integral membrane proteins.

Berridge G, Chalk R, D'Avanzo N, Dong L, Doyle D, Kim JI, Xia X, Burgess-Brown N, Deriso A, Carpenter EP, Gileadi O

Anal. Biochem.. 2011-3-15 . 410(2):272-80 .doi: 10.1016/j.ab.2010.11.008

PMID: 21093405

2010

A prominent β-hairpin structure in the winged-helix domain of RECQ1 is required for DNA unwinding and oligomer formation.

Lucic B, Zhang Y, King O, Mendoza-Maldonado R, Berti M, Niesen FH, Burgess-Brown NA, Pike AC, Cooper CD, Gileadi O, Vindigni A

Nucleic Acids Res.. 2010-11-8 . 39(5):1703-17 .doi: 10.1093/nar/gkq1031

PMID: 21059676

High-throughput production of human proteins for crystallization: the SGC experience.

Savitsky P, Bray J, Cooper CD, Marsden BD, Mahajan P, Burgess-Brown NA, Gileadi O

J. Struct. Biol.. 2010-6-10 . 172(1):3-13 .doi: 10.1016/j.jsb.2010.06.008

PMID: 20541610

2009

Structure of the human RECQ1 helicase reveals a putative strand-separation pin.

Pike AC, Shrestha B, Popuri V, Burgess-Brown N, Muzzolini L, Costantini S, Vindigni A, Gileadi O

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.. 2009-1-27 . 106(4):1039-44 .doi: 10.1073/pnas.0806908106

PMID: 19151156

Large-scale structural analysis of the classical human protein tyrosine phosphatome.

Barr AJ, Ugochukwu E, Lee WH, King ON, Filippakopoulos P, Alfano I, Savitsky P, Burgess-Brown NA, Müller S, Knapp S

Cell. 2009-1-23 . 136(2):352-63 .doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2008.11.038

PMID: 19167335

2008

High throughput production of recombinant human proteins for crystallography.

Gileadi O, Burgess-Brown NA, Colebrook SM, Berridge G, Savitsky P, Smee CE, Loppnau P, Johansson C, Salah E, Pantic NH

Methods Mol. Biol.. 2008-6-11 . 426:221-46 .doi: 10.1007/978-1-60327-058-8_14

PMID: 18542867