Dr Deanne Francis ~ Lecturer, Molecular Genetics

Dr. Deanne Francis is a lecturer in the college of public health, medicine, and vet sciences in the molecular biology department at James Cook University. She has extensive experience using the model organism,  Drosophila melanogaster to investigate questions in developmental biology, genetics, physiology, and metabolism. 

Dr. Francis obtained her Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. Her Ph.D. focused on how connections between different epithelial tubes within the fruit fly larval respiratory system are maintained during growth and development. She did her postdoctoral research with Prof David James in the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney.  Dr. Francis studied how diet and genetic predisposition interact to affect metabolic traits. She performed a genome-wide association study in flies, to look for genetic variants that affect energy storage and utilization in response to diet. 

Her current interest includes understanding the effects of diet on sleep quality and the molecular-genetic responses to heat stress. 

Teaching

• BC3101: Genes, Genomes and Development (Level 3; TSV)

Interests

Research

• Molecular mechanisms of heat response
• What dietary nutrients affect sleep?
• The effect of gene-enviornment interactions on health.

Experience

• 2015 to 2019 - Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Centre (Sydney, NSW, Australia)
• 2009 to 2015 - PhD Student, University of Pennsylvannia Perleman School of Medicine (Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia, USA)
• 2003 to 2009 - Post- baccalaureate Intermural Research Fellowship, National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Maryland, USA)

Research Disciplines

• Biochemistry and cell biology (3101)
• Genetics (3105)
• Medical physiology (3208)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Expanding knowledge (2801)

Fellowships

• 2020 to 2021 - Diabetes Australia Research Trust: Intertwining Genetics and Metabolism: The fruit fly as a model of metabolic disease.
• 2018 to 2019 - Metabolism on the fly
• 2017 to 2018 - Re-entry Fellowship: To validate the diet-responsive genes using RNA interference in the fly.

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Francis D, Burguete A and Ghabrial A (2022) Regulation of Archease by the mTOR-vATPase axis. Development, 149 (19).
• Francis D, Burguete A and Ghabrial A (2022) Regulation of Archease by the mTOR-vATPase axis. Development, 149 (19).
• Havula E, Ghazanfar S, Lamichane N, Francis D, Hasygar K, Liu Y, Alton L, Johnstone J, Needham E, Pulpitel T, Clark T, Niranjan H, Shang V, Tong V, Jiwnani N, Audia G, Alves A, Sylow L, Mirth C, Neely G, Yang J, Hietakangas V, Simpson S and Senior A (2022) Genetic variation of macronutrient tolerance in Drosophila melanogaster. Nature Communications, 13.
• Scopulovic L, Francis D, Pandzic E and Francis R (2022) Quantifying cilia beat frequency using high-speed video microscopy: Assessing frame rate requirements when imaging different ciliated tissues. Physiological Reports, 10 (11). p. e15349
• Blazev R, Ashwood C, Abrahams J, Chung L, Francis D, Yang P, Watt K, Qian H, Quaife-Ryan G, Hudson J, Gregorevic P, Thaysen-Andersen M and Parker B (2021) Integrated Glycoproteomics Identifies a Role of N-Glycosylation and Galectin-1 on Myogenesis and Muscle Development. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 20.
• Francis D, Ghazanfar S, Havula E, Krycer J, Strbenac D, Senior A, Minard A, Geddes T, Nelson M, Weiss F, Stöckli J, Yang J and James D (2021) Genome-wide analysis in Drosophila reveals diet-by-gene interactions and uncovers diet-responsive genes. G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, 11 (10).
• Yang G, Francis D, Krycer J, Larance M, Zhang Z, Novotny C, Diaz-Vegas A, Shokat K and James D (2021) Dissecting the biology of mTORC1 beyond rapamycin. Science Signaling, 14 (701).
• Krycer J, Quek L, Francis D, Fazakerley D, Elkington S, Diaz-Vegas A, Cooke K, Weiss F, Duan X, Kurdyukov S, Zhou P, Tambar U, Hirayama A, Ikeda S, Kamei Y, Soga T, Cooney G and James D (2020) Lactate production is a prioritized feature of adipocyte metabolism. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 295 (1). pp. 83-98
• Krycer J, Quek L, Francis D, Zadoorian A, Weiss F, Cooke K, Nelson M, Diaz-Vegas A, Humphrey S, Scalzo R, Hirayama A, Ikeda S, Shoji F, Suzuki K, Huynh K, Giles C, Varney B, Nagarajan S, Hoy A, Soga T, Meikle P, Cooney G, Fazakerley D and James D (2020) Insulin signaling requires glucose to promote lipid anabolism in adipocytes. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 295 (38). pp. 13250-13266
• Burguete A, Francis D, Rosa J and Ghabrial A (2019) The regulation of cell size and branch complexity in the terminal cells of the Drosophila tracheal system. Developmental Biology, 451. pp. 79-85
• Nelson M, Parker B, Burchfield J, Hoffman N, Needham E, Cooke K, Naim T, Sylow L, Ling N, Francis D, Norris D, Chaudhuri R, Oakhill J, Richter E, Lynch G, Stöckli J and James D (2019) Phosphoproteomics reveals conserved exercise?stimulated signaling and AMPK regulation of store?operated calcium entry. The EMBO Journal, 38 (24).
• Su Z, Burchfield J, Yang P, Humphrey S, Yang G, Francis D, Yasmin S, Shin S, Norris D, Kearney A, Astore M, Scavuzzo J, Fisher-Wellman K, Wang Q, Parker B, Neely G, Vafaee F, Chiu J, Yeo R, Hogg P, Fazakerley D, Nguyen L, Kuyucak S and James D (2019) Global redox proteome and phosphoproteome analysis reveals redox switch in Akt. Nature Communications, 10.

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