Staff Profile

I am a Research Associate In the Murray lab at Newcastle University and my areas of expertise are genetics, microscopy, microbiology, biochemistry and computational biology.

Academic background

• PhD in Synthetic Biology, “A Unified Platform for Experimental and Computational Biology” (University of Newcastle, UK)
• Master of Science, Systems and Synthetic Biology (University of Evry, France & University of Nottingham, UK)
• Maitrise of Science, Bioengineering and Computer Science (University of Evry, France)
• Bachelor of Science, Biological Sciences (University Henri Poincare/University of Evry, France)

List of publications on Google Scholar: Click here.

DNA replication is essential for the accurate transmission of genetic material and failure to initiate this process will result in cell death. In the Murray lab, I investigate the physiological dynamics of bacterial DNA replication through the systematic analysis of initiator proteins in the model organism Bacillus subtilis. 

While it has been established that bacterial chromosome replication takes place bidirectionally in the 1970s, the molecular mechanisms driving this process were unclear. We recently shed light on this outstanding question by the identification of a novel chromosome origin element that we termed the DnaD Recognition Element, or DRE (https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad277). We proposed that DnaD binding to the DRE provides a route to load a second helicase at a bacterial chromosome origin, therefore promoting bidirectional DNA replication. Importantly, we also identified that the recruitment of DnaD to the origin is occluded by the sporulation factor SirA, which negatively regulates helicase loading and inactivates DNA replication (https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkac1060).

My research interests recently diverged towards DNA damage repair as I established a powerful tool to introduce single and specific DNA breaks on the genome. I have obtained funding to pursue this research and will soon start my own group here at the Newcastle University.

• Articles

  • Winterhalter C, Pelliciari S, Stevens D, Fenyk S, Marchand E, Cronin N, Soultanas P, Costa T, Ilangovan A, Murray H. The DNA replication initiation protein DnaD recognises a specific strand of the Bacillus subtilis chromosome origin. Nucleic Acids Research 2023, 51(9), 4322-4340.
  • Winterhalter C, Stevens D, Fenyk S, Pelliciari S, Marchand E, Soultanas P, Ilangovan A, Murray H. SirA inhibits the essential DnaA:DnaD interaction to block helicase recruitment during Bacillus subtilis sporulation. Nucleic Acids Research 2022, epub ahead of print.
  • Tellechea-Luzardo J, Winterhalter C, Widera P, Kozyra J, de Lorenzo V, Krasnogor N. Linking Engineered Cells to Their Digital Twins: A Version Control System for Strain Engineering. ACS synthetic biology 2020, 9(3), 536-545.
  • Martin E, Williams HEL, Pitoulias M, Stevens D, Winterhalter C, Craggs TD, Murray H, Searle MS, Soultanas P. DNA replication initiation in Bacillus subtilis: structural and functional characterization of the essential DnaA-DnaD interaction. Nucleic Acids Research 2019, 47(4), 2101-2112.
  • Winterhalter C, Nicolle R, Louis A, To C, Radvanyi F, Elati M. PEPPER: cytoscape app for protein complex expansion using protein–protein interaction networks. Bioinformatics 2014, 30(23), 3419-3420.
  • Winterhalter C, Widera P, Krasnogor N. JEPETTO: a Cytoscape plugin for gene set enrichment and topological analysis based on interaction networks. Bioinformatics 2014, 30(7), 1029-1030.

• Book Chapter

  • Gaimster H, Winterhalter C, Koh A, Murray H. Visualising the replisome, chromosome breaks, and replication restart in Bacillus subtilis. In: Leake M, ed. Chromosome Architecture. Berlin: Springer Nature, 2021. In Press.