Microbiology

Biography

Alastair Fleming studied Microbiology at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, where he also obtained his PhD with a thesis on industrial extracellular enzyme synthesis from sporulation-deficient strains of Bacillus licheniformis. He subsequently joined Prof. Mary Ann Osley’s lab at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, USA, where he investigated the epigenetic regulation of DNA damage repair and transcription in the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He is now Assistant Professor in the School of Microbiology and Genetics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, where he is the PI of the Yeast Chromatin Group. Dr Fleming’s research group focuses on the role of ‘chromatin remodelling’ during gene transcription in yeast. Current research areas include the investigation of; (i) the epigenetic signature associated with cellular aging, (ii) the epigenetic regulation of transcription initiation, (iii) the epigenetic memory during transcription elongation and (iv), the chromatin-mediated regulation of flocculation within yeast cell populations.

Research Interest

Yeast chromatin and epigenetic regulation of transcription.