A/Prof. Megan O’Mara
BAppSc, BSc, PhD (Physical Sciences)
Rita Cornforth Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
Megan was awarded her PhD from the Australian National University in 2005, after completing undergraduate degrees majoring in biochemistry (University of Canberra) and physics (ANU). She accepted a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the University of Calgary from 2005 to 2008, before returning to Australia in 2009 as University of Queensland Postdoctoral Fellow (2009-2011) in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences. In she took up an ARC DECRA at the University of Queensland and held a joint appointment as Lecturer between the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences and the School of Mathematics and Physics. Megan joined the Research School of Chemistry as Rita Cornforth Fellow and Senior Lecturer in early 2015. Megan’s research focuses on understanding the physical and chemical properties that govern membrane and protein function.
Selected research
- Wilson KA, Fairweather SJ, MacDermott-Opeskin HI, Wang L, Morris RA, O’Mara ML 2021. The role of plasmalogens, Forssman lipids, and sphingolipid hydroxylation in modulating the biophysical properties of the epithelial plasma membrane Journal of Chemical Physics
- O’Mara ML, Cromer B, Parker M et al 2005, Homology Model of the GABAA Receptor Examined Using Brownian Dynamics, *Biophysical Journal**, vol. 88, pp. 3286-3299.
- Corry B, O’Mara M & Chung S 2004, Conduction Mechanisms of Chloride Ions in CIC-Type Channels, Biophysical Journal, vol. 86, pp. 846-860.
- Corry B, O’Mara M & Chung S 2004, Permeation Dynamics of Chloride Ions in the CIC-O and CIC-1 Channels, Chemical Physics Letters, vol. 386, pp. 233-238.
- O’Mara M, Barry P & Chung S 2003, A Model of the Glycine Receptor Deduced from Brownian Dynamics Studies, PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 100, no. 7, pp. 4310-4315.
Projects and Grants
- Enzyme-inspired polymer nanomaterials (Secondary Investigator)
- Next generation facility for investigating thermodynamics and kinetics (Secondary Investigator)
- Establishing Nanoscale Design Principles for Nonviral Genome Engineering (Secondary Investigator)
- Glycine Transport Inhibitors for the Treatment of Pain (Secondary Investigator)
- Novel insights into the molecular mechanisms of manganese recognition and acquisition by pathogenic bacteria (Secondary Investigator)
- QUT contracted research: FimH simulations (Primary Investigator)
- Understanding the role of cellular oxidation in AB peptide transport and amyloid formation in pre-clinical Alzheimer’s disease using molecular modelling as an alternative to animal studies. (Primary Investigator)
- CBR16/1700032 MD Box: A Cloud based repository and analysis toolkit for molecular dynamics simulations (Secondary Investigator)
- Novel Drugs for the Treatment of Chronic Pain (Secondary Investigator)
- Understanding multidrug resistance: identifying the molecular basis of substrate and inhibitor transport by P-glycoprotein (Primary Investigator)