Dr Chris Mahony BSc, PhD

Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
Research Fellow

Contact details

Email: c.mahony@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @C_B_Mahony

Address: University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Mahony is an experienced scientist at the University of Birmingham (UK). He has gained postdoctoral experience in functional genomics, molecular biology, bioinformatics and spatial transcriptomics to unravel the complexities of inflammatory diseases. His current work focuses on uncovering novel transcriptional regulators of synovial fibroblast pathogenicity in the context of Rheumatoid arthritis along with mapping the inflamed joint in JIA. This work relies on developing single cell analysis methods along with spatial transcriptomics and multiplex imaging to highlight novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets that are functionally validated using a range of molecular biology approaches.

Qualifications

PhD in Biomedical Sciences, 2013 (University of Aberdeen, UK)
BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences, 2009 (University of Aberdeen, UK)

Biography

Chris completed his PhD at the University of Aberdeen in 2013 in Professor Vargesson’ s lab. He then moved to Geneva and worked in Professor Bertrand’s lab for his first postdoc. In 2019 he then moved to the University of Birmingham for his second postdoc positon in Dr Monteiro’s lab. In 2021 Chris moved to Prof. Croft’s lab where he is using a range of computational approaches to analyse scRNA-Seq/scATAC-Seq/CITE-Seq data along with functional validation to better understand the pathology of rheumatoid arthritis.

Teaching

Undergraduate

Immunology - 2nd year
Cell signalling - 1st year

Postgraduate

MSc Bioinformatics

Research

Publications

Rauber, S., Mohammadian, H., Schmidkonz, C. et al., CD200+ fibroblasts form a pro-resolving mesenchymal network in arthritis. Nat Immunol (2024, in press).

Mahony CB*, Monteiro R*. Protocol for the analysis of hematopoietic lineages in the whole kidney marrow of adult zebrafish 2024, vol. 5, issue 1, 2024, p. 102810. STAR protocols. .* Corresponding authors

Baruah P, Mahony C, Marshall J, Smith C, Monksfield P, Irving R, Dumitriu I, Buckley C, Croft A. Single cell RNA sequencing analysis of vestibular schwannoma reveals functionally distinct macrophage subsets. 2024 (In press), BJC.

Ahmed, S., Mahony, C.B., Torres, A. et al. Dual inhibition of glycolysis and glutaminolysis for synergistic therapy of rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Res Ther (2023).

Torres A, Kang S, Mahony CB, et al. Role of mitochondria-bound HK2 in rheumatoid arthritis fibroblast-like synoviocytes. Front Immunol. 2023, Jul 17;14:1103231.

Mahony, CB, Copper, L, Vrljicak, P, Noyvert, B, Constantinidou, C, Browne, S, Pan, Y, Palles, C, Ott, S, Higgs, M, Monteiro, R. Lineage skewing and genome instability underlie marrow failure in a zebrafish model of GATA2 deficiency. Cell Reports, 2023.

Mahony, CB*, Cacialli, P, Pasche, C and Bertrand, JY*, “Hapln1b, a central organizer of the extracellular matrix, modulates kit signalling to control developmental haematopoiesis”, Blood Adv (2021) 5 (23): 4935–4948. * Corresponding authors

Pena, OA, Lubin, A, Rowell, J, Hoade, Y, Khokhar, N, Mahony, C, Dace, P, Umamahesan and Payen EM. Differential Requirement of Gata2a and Gata2b for Primitive and Definitive Myeloid Development in Zebrafish. Front. Cell Dev. Biol., 13 September 2021.

Cacialli, P, Mahony, CB, Rougement-Pidoux, A, Bertrand JY. “The connexin/ifi30 pathway bridges HSCs with their niche to dampen oxidative stress”. Nature Communications, volume 12, Article number: 4484 (2021).

Gioacchino, E, Koyunlar, C, Peulen, J, de Looper, H, de Jong, M, Dobrzycki, T, Mahony, CB, Hoogenboezem. R, Bosch, D, van Strien, P, van Royen, M, French, P, Bindels, E, Monteiro, R, Gussinklo, E, Touw, I and de Pater, E, “Essential role for Gata2 in modulating lineage output from hematopoietic stem cells identified in zebrafish”, Blood advances, 2021.

Beedie, S, Harris, E, Strope, J, Mahony, CB, Chau, C, Vargesson, N, Figg, WD, “Cereblon in in vitro angiogenesis and the anti-angiogenic activity of thalidomide”, Jul 2020, The FASEB journal.

Dobrzycki T, Mahony CB, Krecsmarik M, et al. Deletion of a conserved Gata2 enhancer impairs haemogenic endothelium programming and adult Zebrafish haematopoiesis. Commun Biol. 2020;3(1):71. Published 2020 Feb 13.

Mahony, CB, Bertrand JY, “How HSCs colonize and expand in the fetal niche of the vertebrate embryo: an evolutionary perspective”. Front. Cell Dev. Biol. - Stem Cell Research. 2019 Mar 12;7:34.

Ghersi JJ, MahonyCB, Bertrand JY. “bif1, a new BMP signaling inhibitor, regulates embryonic hematopoiesis in the zebrafish. Development. 2019 Mar 5. Epub.

Ferrero, G, Mahony, CB, Dupuis, E, Yvernogeau, L, Di Ruggiero, E, Traver, D, Robin, C, Bertrand, JY and Wittamer, V. Temporally distinct populations of progenitors generate primitive and definitive microglia. Cell reports. 2018, July 3; 24(1):130-141.

Mahony, CB, Pasche, C, Bertrand JY. Oncostatin M and Kit-ligand control hematopoietic stem cell fate during zebrafish embryogenesis. Stem cell reports. 2018, Jun 5; 10(6): 1920–1934.

Mahony, CB, McMenemy, S, Rafipay, AJ, Beedie, S, Fraga, LR, Gutschow, M, Figg, WD, Erskine, L, and Vargesson, N. CPS49-induced neurotoxicity does not cause limb patterning anomalies in developing chicken embryos. J Anat., 2018, Apr 232(4):568-574.

Mahony, CB, Fish RJ., Pasche, C, and Bertrand JY. tfec controls the hematopoietic stem cell vascular niche during zebrafish embryogenesis. Blood. 2016 ;128(10):1336-13.

Beedie SL, Mahony, CB, Walker, H, Chau CH, Vargesson, N, Figg, WD. Shared mechanism of teratogenicity of anti-angiogenic drugs identified in the developing chicken embryo model. Scientific reports. 2016, Jul 22;6:30038.

Beedie SL, Peer CJ, Pisle S, Gardner ER, Mahony CB, Barnett S, Ambrozak A, Gütschow M, Chau CH, Vargesson N, Figg WD. Anticancer Properties of a Novel Class of Tetrafluorinated Thalidomide Analogues Mol Cancer Ther. 2015, Oct;14(10):2228-37.

Mahony, CB, Erskine, L, Niven, J, Greig, NH, Figg, WD, and Vargesson, N. Pomalidomide is nonteratogenic in chicken and zebrafish embryos and nonneurotoxic in vitro. PNAS. 2013, 110(31):12703-8.

Mahony, CB. and Vargesson, N. Molecular analysis of regulative events in the developing chick limb. J Anat. 2013, 223(1):1-13.

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