Tracy Palmer is a Professor of

Microbiology Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, prot ...

in the Biosciences Institute at

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...

in Tyne & Wear, England. She is known for her work on the twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway.

Early life and education

Palmer was born in Sheffield on 8 May 1967, the only child of Enid (née Wilson) and Roy Palmer (a steelworker). Palmer was brought up in the steel town of

Stocksbridge Stocksbridge is a town and civil parish, in the City of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies just to the east of the Peak District. The town is located in the steep-sided valley of th ...

in South Yorkshire where she attended

Stocksbridge High School Stocksbridge High School is a mixed secondary school for 11 to 16-year-olds, in the town of Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire, England. In December 2017 the school gained Academy school status joining Minerva Learning Trust. History The first s ...

. Palmer attended the University of Birmingham where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry in 1988 followed by a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in 1992 for research investigating the enzyme kinetics of the proton pumping transhydrogenase from

photosynthetic Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored in c ...

bacteria. She was inspired by the work of Peter D. Mitchell and his work on chemiosmosis during her PhD.

Career and research

Palmer's main research interest is in the processes by which bacteria secrete proteins into their environment. She was one of the co-discoverers of the bacterial Tat protein secretion system. The Tat system is highly unusual because it transports

folded proteins Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain is Translation (biology), translated to its native protein tertiary structure, three-dimensional structure, typically a "folded" Protein structure, conformation by which the prote ...

of variable sizes across

biological membrane A biological membrane, biomembrane or cell membrane is a selectively permeable membrane that separates the interior of a cell from the external environment or creates intracellular compartments by serving as a boundary between one part of the ce ...

s while at the same time maintaining the impermeability of the membrane to ions. Palmer has initiated work on a second type of protein transporter– the Type VII secretion system (T7SS) in the human pathogen ''

Staphylococcus aureus ''Staphylococcus aureus'' is a Gram-positive spherically shaped bacterium, a member of the Bacillota, and is a usual member of the microbiota of the body, frequently found in the upper respiratory tract and on the skin. It is often positive ...

''. Her group have demonstrated for the first time that the T7SS is involved in interbacterial competition by showing that the ''S. aureus'' T7SS secretes a large

nuclease A nuclease (also archaically known as nucleodepolymerase or polynucleotidase) is an enzyme capable of cleaving the phosphodiester bonds between nucleotides of nucleic acids. Nucleases variously effect single and double stranded breaks in their ta ...

toxin, which inhibits the growth of closely related ''S. aureus'' strains. Palmer's early career included a post doctoral research position at the University of Dundee (1992-1993) where she was a member of Professor David H. Boxer's group in the Department of Biochemistry. At that time Palmer was studying 'Protein FA' - the factor d'association needed for the final step in molybdopterin guanine dinucleotide biosynthesis. Palmer purified the protein and identified it as the product of the ''mobA'' gene. From 1993 to 1996 Palmer was an independent University Research Fellow at the University of Dundee leading a study in to the anaerobic metabolism of ''Rhodobacter sphaeroides''. Indeed, the behaviour of the periplasmic DMSO reductase of ''Rh. sphaeroides'' and its ''E. coli'' homologue TMAO reductase laid the foundations for Palmer's future research on the Tat pathway. In 1996 Palmer was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF), which was administered by the University of East Anglia in Norwich while Palmer's new research group was based in the Department of Molecular Microbiology at the John Innes Centre. In 2004 Palmer was awarded an MRC Senior Non-Clinical Research Fellowship and was promoted to a Personal Chair in Molecular Microbiology by the University of East Anglia. While in Norwich Palmer began a long collaboration with Professor Ben C. Berks FRS (now of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford). Together they were awarded the 2002 Microbiology Society Fleming Prize Lecture for characterisation of the bacterial twin-arginine protein targeting (Tat) system. In 2007 Palmer was recruited back to the University of Dundee to take up a new position in the College of Life Sciences. Palmer was Head of the Division of Molecular Microbiology at Dundee from 2009 to 2017 before leaving to join

in 2018. She is now Head of the research theme Microbes in Health & Disease, which is part of the Newcastle Biosciences Institute (NUBI) within the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FMS). In 2021, Palmer was appointed as Deputy Editor in Chief of ''Microbiology'', to help develop the journal towards its 75th Anniversary in 2022, after serving for many years as an Editor of ''Molecular Microbiology''.

Awards and honours

Palmer was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018 for “substantial contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge”. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2009, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) in 1996. In 2021, Palmer was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Palmer, Tracey Living people Alumni of the University of Birmingham Academics of the University of East Anglia Academics of the University of Dundee Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1967 births Female Fellows of the Royal Society Women molecular biologists British microbiologists