John Reece-Hoyes

John Reece-Hoyes is a Senior Director, Head of Vector Biology at Affinia Therapeutics since 2022. Previously, they were a Senior Principal Scientist at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) from 2014-2022, an Investigator III from 2011-2014, and an Investigator II from 2008-2011. From 2006-2008, they were a Research Associate Professor at UMass Medical School where they used yeast-based functional assay (yeast one-hybrid) to delineate regulatory interactions between proteins and genomic DNA from the C. elegans and generated stable transgenic animals containing wild-type promoter::GFP constructs to observe the cellular pattern of expression of ~50 C. From 2004-2006, they were a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Leeds where they generated stable transgenic animals containing wild-type promoter::GFP constructs to observe the cellular pattern of expression of ~300 C. elegans genes, often in the nervous system, using fluorescence microscopy, developed a protocol that increased the throughput of transgenic animal generation, used knowledge of cell biology to document the cellular location and timing of GFP expression in the transgenic animals, collaborated with a bioinformatition to generate a web-tool for public access of documented expression patterns, and collaborated to help develop an in vivo functional assay (DamID) to detect interactions between protein and DNA by generating stable transgenic animals ubiquitously expressing a C. elegans protein fused to the bacterial Dam protein. From 2001-2004, they were a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of York where they used in situ hybridization to observe the cellular pattern of expression of members of the Cdx family of genes in Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis during embryonic development, dissected the mechanism of action of Cdx4 by generating stable transgenic X. laevis animals containing various wild-type and mutated fragments of the Cdx4 promoter upstream of LacZ and using in situ hybridization to compare the induced LacZ expression pattern to wild-type Cdx4 expression, investigated potential regulators of Cdx4 expression by injecting X. laevis embryos with wild-type and mutated promoter::luciferase constructs together with mRNA for various transcription factor proteins, and assayed luciferase expression in embryo extracts, and compared promoter regions that were essential for correct Cdx4 function to the genomes of other vertebrate species, including humans, and found that both sequence and physical position relative to the Cdx4 orthologs is ultra-conserved. John Reece-Hoyes was a Graduate Student at James Cook University from 1997-2001.

John Reece-Hoyes completed a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry & Microbiology from James Cook University in 1996. John then went on to pursue a PhD in Evolutionary Molecular Biology from the same university, which they completed in 2000.