Assistant Research Fellow
Email alex.botha@otago.ac.nz
Research interests
My interest lies in cancer and ageing research. By investigating the molecular details of tumour-suppressor p16 oxidation, my aim is to understand the role of this novel transition in cancer. I am particularly interested in determining the progression of p16 into an amyloid state in different cancer cell lines. I specialise in fluorescence microscopy and cell culture techniques but also explore biophysical methods using recombinant p16 protein.
Publications
Heath, S. G., Gray, S. G., Hamzah, E., O'Connor, K. M., Bozonet, S. M., Botha, A. D., de Cordovez, P., Magon, N. J., Naughton, J. D., … Göbl, C. (2024). Amyloid formation and depolymerization of tumor suppressor p16INK4a are regulated by a thiol-dependent redox mechanism. Nature Communications, 15(1), 5535. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-49581-7 Journal - Research Article
Goebl, C., Heath, S., O'Connor, K. M., Bozonet, S., Botha, A., Smith, B., Hamzah, E., … Sethi, A., & Morris, V. K. (2023, August). A novel amyloid formation mechanism: Oxidation-induced transition of the tumour suppressor protein p16 into amyloid fibrils. Verbal presentation at the 33rd Queenstown Molecular Biology Meeting (QMB), Queenstown, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Morris, V. K., Heath, S. G., O'Connor, K. M., Bozonnet, S., Gray, S. G., Naughton, J. D., Magon, N. J., Smith, B. R., Botha, A. D., … Göbl, C. (2022, August). The tumour suppressor protein p16 forms amyloid structures. Verbal presentation at the Cancer Satellite Meeting: Queenstown Research Week, Queenstown, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs