Affiliation: University of Toronto

Dr. Barsyte-Lovejoy is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and Principal Investigator at the Structural Genomics Consortium. She received an undergraduate degree in biology from Vilnius University, Lithuania and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Manchester, UK where she focused on stress response and ageing regulation. She went on to do her postdoctoral training at the University of Manchester, Dr Andy Sharrocks' lab and at the Ontario Cancer Institute, Canada in Dr Linda Penn’s lab, working on transcription factor and kinase signaling, recognition modes, oncogenic programs, and epigenetics. Dr. Barsyte-Lovejoy’s research focuses on understanding how epigenetic regulators control cell survival, death, and adaptation. Epigenetic enzymes that methylate lysine/arginine residues on histones, transcription, splicing or repair factors, chaperones, and signaling proteins provide additional levels of functional regulation profoundly impacting the biological systems. Using the chemical probe, small molecule compounds that modulate epigenetic regulators, we are investigating the cellular functions of these proteins and their potential to become therapeutic targets in diseases such as cancer. Notable recent contributions include: characterizing small molecule arginine methyltransferase inhibitor compounds and cellular functions of PRMT enzymes (Eram et al 2016; Bonday et al 2018; Szewczyk et al 2020), studying lysine methyltransferases and their substrates (Barsyte-Lovejoy et al, 2014; Bromberg et al 2017) and targeting methylation readers in chromatin and cancer biology (Grebien et al 2015; He et al 2017; Bottcher et al 2019).