Professor Anne Donaldson

Anne Donaldson is Professor of Chromosome Biology at the University of Aberdeen, where her research group investigates how cells replicate their DNA.

Originally from Glasgow, Anne completed her BA and PhD degrees in Cambridge (at Christ’s College), before moving as a NATO/SERC postdoctoral fellow to the University of Washington in Seattle, where she began to study DNA replication—a process central to all life, since a complete copy of the genome must be passed to each daughter cell on every cell division. As a postdoc at the University of Washington, Anne examined how kinase enzymes initiate DNA replication by activating the replication machinery.

On returning to the UK, Anne established her research group as a Royal Society University Research Fellow first at the University of Dundee, and since 2003 at the University of Aberdeen. Anne’s research uses molecular genetic analyses of yeast and human cells to elucidate fundamental biological controls that are conserved through evolution.

Her research group has made major contributions to the understanding of DNA replication. Of particular significance is her discovery of a new pathway through which a conserved protein, called RIF1, regulates replication initiation. As a Clare Hall Visiting Fellow, Anne is examining the biochemical basis of DNA replication regulation by RIF1. In this research she is collaborating with Dr Joe Yeeles, world leader in studies of DNA replication biochemistry, whose lab is based at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

At Clare Hall, Anne is accompanied by her partner Professor Stefan Hoppler, also of Aberdeen University. Stefan studies the intercellular signalling pathways that establish the vertebrate body plan during embryonic development.