Guðjón Ólafsson
Titill
About
Assistant Professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Iceland
Contact: golafsson (at) hi.is
Location: Department of Life Sciences, BioMedical Center, Sturlugata 8, 102 Reykjavik Iceland
Education:
2018 PhD, Cell- and Molecular Biology, University College London and Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom
2011 BS, Molecular Biology, Birkbeck University of London, United Kingdom
Professional experience:
2025 - present
Assistant Professor - Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
2023 – 2025
Postdoctoral Fellow – Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, BioMedical Center, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
2020 – 2023
Postdoctoral Fellow – Institute for Systems Genetics, New York University Langone Health, United States
2018 – 2020
Postdoctoral Research Assistant – School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom
2011 – 2013
Research Technician – The National Institute for Medical Research, Medical Research Council, London, United Kingdom
Centromeres are regions on chromosomes that assemble large protein complexes, known as kinetochores. The regulation of this region is essential for faithful chromosome segregation, and its dysregulation can result in aneuploidy—the abnormal number of chromosomes between divided daughter cells—which is a hallmark of cancer. Non-coding transcription at the centromere is increasingly recognized as important for genome stability.
However, the regulatory mechanisms and key factors involved in centromeric transcription are still unclear. Our current research focus is studying transcription factors that can act at centromeres. We use a combination of bioinformatics, cell- and molecular biology, and high-throughput synthetic biology tools to probe candidate transcription factors at centromeric regions and assess their transcriptional activity, particularly in stress conditions.
We use both human cancer and yeast cell models to compare conserved mechanisms and analyse the consequences of dysregulated centromeric transcription on chromosomal instability, cell adaptation, and stress resistance. Our research aims to identify novel regulatory pathways and biomarkers relevant to a variety of cancers and uncover molecular mechanisms that safeguard chromosome stability.
2024 – Klemm, C, Ólafsson, G, Wood, HR and Thorpe, PH. Proteome-wide forced interactions reveal a functional map of cell-cycle phospho-regulation in S. cerevisiae. Nucleus, 15(1): 2420129
2024 – Haase, MAB, Lazar-Stefanita, L, Ólafsson, G, Wudzinska, A, Shen, MJ, Truong, DM, Boeke, JD. macroH2A1 drives nucleosome dephasing and genome instability in histone humanized yeast. Cell Reports, 43(7): 114472
2023 – Ólafsson, G, Haase, MAB, Boeke JD. Humanization reveals pervasive incompatibility of yeast and human kinetochore components. [Featured article] G3 – Genes, Genomes, Genetics. 14;1: jkad260.
2023 – Haase, MAB, Ólafsson, G, Flores, RL, Boakye-Ansah, E, Zelter, A, Dickinson, MS, Lazar-Stefanita, L, Truong, DM, Asbury, CL, Davis, TN, Boeke, JD. DASH/Dam1 complex mutants stabilize ploidy in histone-humanized yeast by weakening kinetochore-microtubule attachments. EMBO Journal, 42(8): e112600.
2021 – Klemm, C, Wood, H, Thomas, GH, Ólafsson, G, Torres, MT and Thorpe, PH. Forced association of SARS- CoV-2 proteins with the yeast proteome perturb vesicle trafficking. Microbial Cell, 8(12): 280–296.
2021 – Klemm, C, Thorpe, PH and Ólafsson, G. Cell-cycle phospho-regulation of the kinetochore. Current Genetics, 67: 177-193.
2020 – Ólafsson, G and Thorpe, PH. Polo kinase recruitment via the constitutive centromere-associated network at the kinetochore elevates centromeric RNA. PLoS Genetics, 16(8): e1008990.
2019 – Mishra, PK, Ólafsson, G, Boeckmann, L, Westlake, TJ, Jowhar, ZM, Dittman, LE, Baker, RE, D'Amours, D, Thorpe, PH, and Basrai, MA. Cell cycle dependent association of polo kinase Cdc5 with CENP-A contributes to faithful chromosome segregation in budding yeast. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 30: 1020-1036.
2016 – Ólafsson, G and Thorpe, PH. Synthetic physical interactions map kinetochore-checkpoint activation regions. G3 – Genes, Genomes, Genetics. 9;6(8): 2531-42.
2016 – Berry, LK, Ólafsson, G, Ledesma-Fernandez, E and Thorpe, PH. Synthetic protein interactions reveal a functional map of the cell. eLife. 5:e13053.
2015 – Ólafsson, G and Thorpe, PH. Synthetic physical interactions map kinetochore regulators and regions sensitive to constitutive Cdc14 localization. PNAS. 112(33):10413-8.
Book chapter:
2018 – Ólafsson, G and Thorpe, PH. Rewiring the budding yeast proteome using synthetic physical interactions. Methods in Molecular Biology, 1672: 599-612.
Preprints:
2023 – Klemm, C, Ólafsson, G, Thorpe, PH. Synthetic cell-cycle regulation identifies Mif2CENP-C as a CDK phospho-target at the kinetochore. bioRxiv. doi.org/10.1101/2023.03.24.534130
2016 – Ledesma-Fernándes, E, Herrero E, Ólafsson, G, Thorpe, PH. Protein Kinase C and the stress response pathways are required for kinetochore homeostasis. bioRxiv. doi.org/10.1101/078196