Sónia Rocha
Sónia Maria Campos Soares da Rocha, usually referred to as Professor Sónia Rocha, is a Portuguese
Early life and education
Rocha was born in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, and was educated at the University of Porto, where she received the equivalent of a UK first-class honours degree in biology from the Faculty of Science. She subsequently studied for a PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland, graduating in 2000 after working alongside Martin Pruschy and K. H. Winterhalter.[2]
Career and research highlights
Following her PhD, Rocha took up a postdoctoral research position in the Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression,[3] in the School of Life Sciences[4] at the University of Dundee, where she was supervised by Neil Perkins. In 2005, she was awarded an Independent RCUK Fellowship to continue her work in the molecular basis of transcription, taking up a position as a RCUK fellow and tenure-track principal investigator. She then became a principal investigator in 2011, and in the same year, was awarded a prestigious Cancer Research UK senior research fellowship, which was taken up in the Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression,[3] in Dundee between 2011 and 2017. She was deputy director of the Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression, between 2012 and 2017, and was then promoted to professor of molecular and cellular biology in 2016. In July 2017, she took up the position of head of the Biochemistry Department in the Institute of Integrative Biology,[5] and from 2020 has been promoted to become executive dean of the Institute of Systems, Molecular & Integrative Biology at the University of Liverpool.
Rocha is an experienced undergraduate and postgraduate teacher and convenor, and has delivered courses on cell signalling, genes and cancer module, genes and proteins, and was a lecturer in gene regulation and expression modules at the University of Dundee, including module coordination. As of 2019, she has published >60 peer-reviewed research articles, co-authored 12 peer-reviewed research reviews and contributed to one book chapter. Amongst her most cited work is the discovery that Hypoxia-Inducible Factor is regulated by NF-κB[6] and a recent paper in Science that demonstrates Hypoxia modulates histone methylation and reprograms chromatin.[7] This paper was published back-to-back with a study co-authored by 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner for Medicine William Kaelin Jr.[8] These papers were highlighted in an independent editorial.[9] Other relevant publications include a chemical biology approach to analysing hypoxic signalling,[10] analysis of the targeted degradation of regulation of the oxygen-regulated prolylyl hydoxylase enzyme, also known as Procollagen-proline dioxygenase,[11] and molecular analysis of the regulation of PHD1 by protein phosphorylation.[12]
Research networks, scientific service and scientific outreach
Rocha's funding portfolio includes a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award in Science, for which she is lead (2017–2022) and significant further PI funding from
Awards and honours
Rocha is an invited member of the
References
- ^ "Institute of Integrative Biology - University of Liverpool".
- ^ "Sonia Rocha appointed Reader". Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression - University of Dundee. 2014-01-29. Retrieved 2020-04-13.
- ^ a b "Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression - University of Dundee". 2013-08-07. Archived from the original on 2014-04-06.
- ^ "School of Life Sciences - University of Dundee".
- ^ "Institute of Integrative Biology - University of Liverpool".
- PMID 18393939.
- S2CID 78093369.
- PMID 30872525.
- S2CID 78091150.
- PMID 27811928.
- PMID 23932902.
- PMID 26644182.
- S2CID 78093369.
- PMID 18651837.