This June, Dr. Byron Baron from the University of Malta, Malta, is our Scientist of the Month! He's shared with us his research highlights, his current projects and some comments on the biotechnology industry. Want to be our Scientist of the Month? Contact info@stjohnslabs.com

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Scientist
of the
Month
Please could you describe your
academic background to date. Bachelor in Biology
and Chemistry (2002-2006), Ph.D in Cell Biology (2006-2011),
Post-doc (2012-2014), Academic (2015-present).
Please could you describe a bit about the
research field you work in now and how you got
to where you are? My current research is in Heat Shock
Protein (HSP) lysine methylation. During my Ph.D. I identified
an interaction with, at that time, an uncharacterized
methyltransferase enzyme, METTL23, which I then
continued to study during my post-doc. As the main focus
for my independent research I then decided to start
investigating the methylation of HSPs.
What are you going with your research? I'm aiming
to improve the understanding of the contexts in which HSPs
are methylated and how these can be used as biomarkers
for specific conditions.
What issues do you see in the future of the
industry? Like all post-translational modifications,
methylations (including of non-histone proteins) will also be
included in the list of tools used for diagnostics.
What
changes in the
industry you would like to see and why? It would
be nice to see more collaboration between the companies
and the end-users in the development and testing of
antibodies to make them more appropriate for the desired
applications and reliable.
What responsibilities do you think you
have vs companies? I think both researchers and
suppliers should be doing their utmost to validate the
products being used in research. The suppliers should not
sell products which waste research time and money but
researchers should ensure that every batch is up to the
required standard and adequate for the desired
application.
What do you think about the current
situation of the biotech industry? The biotech
industry is strongly pushing forward in developing and
marketing products which can act as alternatives to
traditional biotech products but costs are still rather
prohibiting for small research groups due to the technology
required.
What do you think researcher should be
doing to improve the quality of the science
produced? Scientists should focus less on writing "a story"
for their research to be published by journals which are only
after the journalistic sensationalism and more on putting
out unbiased data sets which can be used by the scientific
community to build stronger molecular mechanisms based
on evidence from a variety of sources and techniques.
Do you have any scientific reference
papers you would like our readers to see? Reiff,
R.E., Ali, B.R., Baron, B., Timothy, W.Y., Ben-Salem, S., Coulter,
M.E., Schubert, C.R., Hill, R.S., Akawi, N.A., Al-Younes, B. and
Kaya, N., 2014. METTL23, a transcriptional partner of GABPA,
is essential for human cognition. Human molecular
genetics, p.ddu054
2002
BSc in Biology and
Chemistry
2006
PhD in Cell Biology
2012
Post-Doc
2015
Academic in University of
Malta