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Home / Our people / Dr Delia O’Rourke

Dr Delia O’Rourke

College Lecturer in Biochemistry

College Lecturer in Human Sciences

delia.orourke@hertford.ox.ac.uk

Delia received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and her PhD in Virology from the University of London. Following a Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, she then took a postdoctoral position with Professor Doug Higgs at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford, where she investigated the role of ATR-X protein in the control of alpha-globin gene expression. She then worked with Professor Jonathan Hodgkin at the Department of Biochemistry on host-pathogen interactions in the nematode C.elegans.

Since 2017 Delia transferred her focus from research to educational development.  She worked as an Educational Development Consultant at the University, designing online and in-person training programmes for those teaching in Higher Education STEM subjects. Delia was appointed Co-director for the MSc in Genomic Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Medicine in 2022.

Her pedagogical interests include postgraduate taught programmes, active learning techniques, digitally supported inclusive teaching, universal design, and discipline-specific educational research. She is a co-founder and coordinator of the Oxford Postgraduate Teaching Network (OPTN), established in 2021 to build a community to share expertise and innovation on postgraduate Teaching and Learning. The OPTN was recently awarded a Teaching Excellence Project award from the Medical Sciences Division.

Undergraduate teaching

Delia teaches Biochemistry undergraduate tutorials in Data Handling, Genomics, and Cell Signaling.

She provides dissertation support to undergraduate Human Scientists and supervises tutorials in Molecular Biochemistry, Human Genetics and Genomics.

Graduate teaching

Delia supervises tutorials and practical sessions on the MSc in Genomic Medicine and is an Academic Advisor to Genomic Medicine students, supporting their academic and skills development.

  • Publications

    Isolation and molecular identification of nematode surface mutants with resistance to bacterial pathogens . Delia O’Rourke, Maria J Gravato-Nobre, Dave Stroud, Emily Pritchett, Emily Barker, Rebecca L Price, Sarah A Robinson, Simon Spiro, Patricia Kuwabara, Jonathan Hodgkin

    G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics, Volume 13, Issue 5, May 2023 jkad056, https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkad056

    Bada Juarez JF, O’Rourke D, Judge PJ, Liu LC, Hodgkin J, Watts A (2019)

    Lipodisqs for eukaryote lipidomics with retention of viability: Sensitivity and resistance to Leucobacter infection linked to C.elegans cuticle composition. Chem Phys Lipids. 2019 Aug;222:51-58

    doi: 10.1016/j.chemphyslip.2019.02.005

    Loer CM, Calvo AC, Watschinger K, Werner-Felmayer G, O’Rourke D, Stroud D, Tong A, Gotenstein JR, Chisholm AD, Hodgkin J, Werner ER, Martinez A. (2015) Cuticle integrity and biogenic amine synthesis in Caenorhabditis elegans require the cofactor tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4). Genetics. 2015 May;200(1):237-53.doi: 10.1534/genetics.114.174110

    O’Rourke, D “Worms, Germs and Genes” 2015 Phenotype P21 (https://issuu.com/phenotypejournal/docs/alldonett15)

    Parsons LM, Mizanur RM, Jankowska E, Hodgkin J, O Rourke D, Stroud D, Ghosh S, Cipollo JF (2015) Caenorhabditis elegans bacterial pathogen resistant bus-4 mutants produce altered mucins. PLoS One. 2014 Oct 8;9(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107250

    O’Rourke D, Baban D, Demidova M, Mott R, Hodgkin J. (2006) Genomic clusters, putative pathogen recognition molecules, and antimicrobial genes are induced by infection of C. elegans with M. nematophilum. Genome Res. 16(8):1005-16. DOI:10.1101/gr.50823006

    Bishop T, Lau KW, Epstein AC, Kim SK, Jiang M, O’Rourke D, Pugh CW, Gleadle JM, Taylor MS, Hodgkin J, Radcliff PJ. (2004) Genetic analysis of pathways regulated by the von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor in Caenorhabditis elegans. PLoS Biol. 2(10): e289.

    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020289

    Gibbons RJ, McDowell TL, Raman S, O’Rourke DM, Garrick D, Ayyub H, Higgs DR. (2000) Mutations in ATRX, encoding a SWI/SNF-like protein, cause diverse changes in the pattern of DNA methylation. Nat Genet. 24(4):368-71. DOI:10.1038/74191

    McDowell TL, Gibbons RJ, Sutherland H, O’Rourke DM, Bickmore WA, Pombo A, Turley H, Gatter K, Picketts DJ, Buckle VJ, Chapman L, Rhodes D, Higgs DR (1999). Localization of a putative transcriptional regulator (ATRX) at pericentromeric heterochromatin and the short arms of acrocentric chromosomes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 96(24):13983-8. DOI:10.1073/pnas.96.24.13983

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