Susana Teixeira

Can you tell us a bit about your studies and your scientific field?

I have a background in Chemical Engineering and my PhD was on crystallographic studies of proteins and DNA/drug complexes. My Scientific field is Structural Biology, with an emphasis on the use of Neutron Crystallography and Small Angle Neutron scattering as structural probes of biological molecules.

Please describe step by step how you got to your position

• 1991-1997: MSc in Chemical Engineering (Applied Chemistry); Erasmus and Int. Association for the Exchange of Students and Technology trainings in Sweden, UK, France.
• 1997-1999: Research Assistant, Protein Crystallography (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
• 2000-2003: PhD in Chemistry, Crystallographic studies of biological molecules at the University of Reading (UK); project partly carried out at the University of Washington (Seattle/USA).
• 2003-2007: Keele University (UK) Postdoc placed at the ILL, Grenoble. Deuterium Labelling and Neutron Crystallography. Instrument scientist at DB21 and LADI beamlines.
• 2007-2015: Lecturer in Biophysics (UK) & Instrument Scientist at the ILL (D16, LADI beamlines). Joint position.
• 2016-present: Instrument Scientist placed at the SANS group of the Nat. Inst. for Science and Technology (NIST, USA). Working for the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Dept. of the University of Delaware.

Have you got publications?

• S. Lenton, T. Nylander, C. Holt, L. Sawyer, M. Haertlein, H. Mueller, S. Teixeira (2016). Structural studies of hydrated samples of amorphous calcium phosphate and phosphoprotein nanoclusters. Eur. Biophys. J. 45, 405-412.

• F. Sebastiani, M. Longo, A. Orecchini, L. Comez, A. De Francesco, M. Muthmann, S. C. M. Teixeira, C. Petrillo, F. Sacchetti and A. Paciaroni (2015). Hydration-dependent dynamics of human telomeric oligonucleotides in the picosecond timescale: A neutron scattering study. J. Chem. Phys. 143, 015102, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4923213

• C. Holt, S. Lenton, T. Nylander, E. Sørensen, S. Teixeira (2014). Mineralisation of soft and and hard tissues and the stability of biofluids. J. Struct Biol. 18, 383-96.

• C. Casadei, A. Gumiero, C. Metcalfe, E. Murphy, J. Basran, M. Concilio, S. Teixeira, T. Schrader, A. Fielding, A. Ostermann, M. Blakeley, E. Raven, P. Moody. (2014). Heme enzymes. Neutron cryo-crystallography captures the protonation state of ferryl heme in a peroxidase. Science 345, 193-197.

• S. Teixeira, M. Blakeley, R. Leal, S. Gillespie, E. Mitchell, V. Forsyth (2010). Sweet neutron crystallography. Acta Cryst. D 66, 1139-1143.

• S. Teixeira et al. (2008). New sources and instrumentation for neutrons in biology, Chem. Phys. 345, (2008), 133-151.

• S.Teixeira, M.Blakeley, R. Leal, E.Mitchell and V. Forsyth (2008). A preliminary neutron crystallographic study of thaumatin, Acta Cryst. F 64,378-381.

• K. Papanikolopoulu, S. Teixeira, H. Belrhali, T. Forsyth, M. van Raaij (2004). Adenovirus fibre shaft sequences fold into the native triple beta-spiral fold when N-terminally fused to the bacteriophage T4 fibritin foldon trimerisation motif. J. Mol. Biol. 342, 219-227.

• J. Thorpe, S. Teixeira, B. Gale, C. Cardin (2003). Crystal structure of the complementary quadruplex formed by d(GCATGCT) at atomic resolution. Nucleic Acids Res. 31, 844-849.

• S.C.M. Teixeira, J.H. Thorpe, A. Todd, H. Powell, A. Adams, L. Wakelin, W. Denny, C. Cardin (2002). Structural Characterisation of Bisintercalation in Higher-order DNA at a Junction-like Quadruplex. J. Mol. Biol. 323, 167-171.

• S. Teixeira, C. Cardin, L. Lo Leggio, R. Pickersgill (2001). Anisotropic refinement of the structure of T. aurantiacus xylanase I. Acta Cryst D57, 385-392.

• H. Raaijmakers, S. Teixeira, J. Dias, M. Almendra, C. Brondino, I. Moura, K., J. Moura, M. Romão (2001).Tungsten-containing formate dehydrogenase from Desulfovibrio gigas: metal identification and preliminary structural data by multi-wavelength crystallography. J. Biol. Inorg. Chem. 6, 398-404.

What Percentage of your time do you dedicate to your family/ work/ you?

30/60/10.

Who or what is your mentor or greatest inspiration?

My family and my PhD supervisor, Dr. C. Cardin.

What is the most challenging thing you have faced in your career?

Managing time/work in 2 countries, with my family living on a third.

Contact details

susanat@udel.edu or scm5@nist.gov
NIST Centre for Neutron Research
National Institute for Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Bld.235
MS 6102, Gaithersburg MD 20899
T: +1 (301)975-4404

In 2016, Susana Teixeira published a novel entitled “Europe is right there” (A Europa é já ali). Portugal is the European Union country with the highest emigration as a proportion of its population. This timely story travels between the emotional and physical distances faced by portuguese: the ones that stay behind, those who leave and those they meet along the way. For further information (in Portuguese) click here.