Dr Emily Flashman

Winner: 2022 Chemistry Biology Interface Division early career award: Norman Heatley Award

University of Oxford

For the elucidation of molecular mechanisms of oxygen-sensing enzymes in plants and animals, in particular revealing the structural and kinetic properties of plant cysteine oxidases.

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On a large scale, I'm motivated by the knowledge that the work we're doing has the potential to help solve an important global problem.

Professor Flashman’s team look at the role of enzymes in plant and humans in response to reduced oxygen availability. The team explores how the structure and mechanism of these enzymes helps them control their rate of reaction with oxygen and therefore their ability to act as good oxygen sensors. In both humans and plants, these oxygen-sensing enzymes take oxygen from the atmosphere and transfer the oxygen atoms onto specific target proteins. This acts as a signal for the target proteins to be degraded by the cell. If oxygen levels reduce, the rate of enzyme activity decreases and the target proteins are stabilised.

The consequence of this stabilisation is that cells adapt to the reduced oxygen availability, for example by switching to anaerobic metabolism. This system has been known for some time in humans, and inhibitors of the oxygen-sensing enzymes has led to treatments for anaemia. Excitingly, finding inhibitors for plant oxygen-sensing enzymes or engineering changes to their structure and mechanism could slow their activity and help plants survive flooded (low oxygen) conditions for longer. This will be important in generating crops that are more tolerant of stresses associated with climate change.

Read winner biography

Emily Flashman is Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Oxford. She leads a research group investigating enzymes involved in stress-sensing, with a particular focus on oxygen-sensing enzymes in plants and their role in flood tolerance and other forms of hypoxic stress. This is supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant and previously a BBSRC New Investigator Award.

From 2010 to 2016 Emily held a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin fellowship and prior to this conducted postdoctoral research with Professor Chris Schofield in Oxford Chemistry, conducting kinetic and mechanistic studies on oxygen-sensing enzymes in humans. She gained her BSc in biochemistry with pharmacology at the University of Southampton, conducting a research project with Professor Keith Fox investigating triple helix DNA formation. She then spent 18 months as a research assistant with Professor Kathryn Wood in the Nuffield Department of Surgery in Oxford.

Emily conducted her DPhil in the department of cardiovascular medicine in Oxford with Professor Hugh Watkins where she used biophysical methods to investigate the effects of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy-causing mutations on the interactions between proteins in heart muscle. Emily’s work has been recognised with a L’Oreal For Women in Science Fellowship (2011) and the 2018 University of Kent Wain Award for Excellence in the Biosciences.

Q+A

What motivates you?

On a large scale, I'm motivated by the knowledge that the work we're doing has the potential to help solve an important global problem. On the day-to-day scale, I'm motivated by the people I work with, making sure I give them the support they need to achieve their best work.

Can you tell us about a scientific development on the horizon that you are excited about?

I'm really excited about work that's being done with the PETase enzyme. This enzyme was identified in bacteria that have evolved to break down plastic into a carbon source. The PETase enzyme that is endogenous to these bacteria is quite slow to break down PET plastics, but there has been a lot of work over the last few years to engineer this enzyme to catalyse PET hydrolysis more efficiently. Exploitation of this enzyme has the potential to make a big difference to closed-loop plastic recycling, and I'm excited to see where this can go.

What has been a highlight for you (either personally or in your career)?

I was lucky enough to be asked to be on the panel for the Royal Society prize for Science Writing in 2013. As a book lover, having over 100 science books arriving in boxes to my house was just thrilling! But in taking the time to read about such a breadth and diversity of science (I was on maternity leave, baby in one hand, book in the other), I realised that I wanted to change the focus of my work from human health to environmental sustainability. When I returned to work, my eyes were open for opportunities. When the chance to work on plant oxygen-sensing enzymes came along, with consequent implications for plant flood tolerance, I grabbed it with both hands and, from a career perspective, it was the best thing I ever did.

What is your favourite element?

Oxygen of course! It's power and poison, and the relationship between oxygen and evolution of different life forms is fascinating.