Contact Details
- Phone
- +64 3 364 1559
- martina.paumann-page@otago.ac.nz
University Links
- Position
- Senior Research Fellow
- Department
- Department of Pathology and Biomedical Science (Christchurch)
- Research summary
- Free radicals
Research
Dr Martina Paumann-Page graduated from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria, with a Master of Science in Biotechnology and Food Science, followed by a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Vienna, Austria. As recipient of an Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship from the FWF Austrian Science Fund for research abroad, she joined the Centre for Free Radical Research as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2009. After a postdoctoral position in Vienna from 2013-2016 she permanently joined the Centre for Free Radical Research in 2017.
In 2017, Dr Paumann-Page was the recipient of the Freemasons Carrell-Espiner Research Fellowship and a CMRF Canterbury Medical Research Foundation Major Project Grant. Since 2019 she has been an associate investigator on a Mardsen grant. Since 2017 she has co-supervised one PhD student, one honours student and two summer students.
Dr Paumann-Page’s main research interest is how the reactions of mammalian peroxidases are involved in health and disease. Currently she investigates a newly identified extracellular peroxidase called peroxidasin, which was shown to be upregulated in invasive metastatic melanoma and other cancers. The mechanism by which peroxidasin contributes to tumour cell invasion is unknown, but most likely connected to its enzymatic activity. Peroxidasin generates hypobromous acid, a strong oxidant similar to chlorine bleach, which reacts with a multitude of biological molecules and modifies intra- and extracellular components. Dr Paumann-Page is investigating well-characterized cell lines from the New Zealand melanoma cell panel to characterize peroxidasin expression levels, activity, cellular location and the effect of modulation of peroxidasin protein levels and activity on cell invasiveness.
Her expertise lies in protein biochemistry (including cloning, expression and characterization of proteins) and enzymology with a particular focus on structure, function and reactivity of mammalian peroxidases and their reaction products.
Publications
Featherston, T., Paumann-Page, M., & Hampton, M. B. (2024). Melanoma redox biology and the emergence of drug resistance. In Advances in cancer research. Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/bs.acr.2024.06.004 Chapter in Book - Research
Featherston, T., Helem, S., Smyth, L. C. D., Hampton, M. B., & Paumann-Page, M. (2024). Comparing automated cell imaging with conventional methods of measuring cell proliferation and viability. Toxicology Mechanisms & Methods. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/15376516.2024.2360051 Journal - Research Article
Paumann-Page, M., Obinger, C., Winterbourn, C. C., & Furtmüller, P. G. (2024). Peroxidasin inhibition by phloroglucinol and other peroxidase inhibitors. Antioxidants, 13, 23. doi: 10.3390/antiox13010023 Journal - Research Article
Paumann-Page, M., Smith-Diaz, C., Kumar, A., Chitcholtan, K., Hampton, M., & Winterbourn, C. (2023). Peroxidasin: A novel modulator of melanoma cell invasion. Proceedings of the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (NZSBMB) 50th Anniversary Conference. Retrieved from https://www.nzsbmb.org/conference Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract
Featherston, T., Paumann-Page, M., & Hampton, M. (2023). Treating vemurafenib-resistant metastatic melanoma cells with thioredoxin reductase inhibitors. Proceedings of the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (NZSBMB) 50th Anniversary Conference. Retrieved from https://www.nzsbmb.org/conference Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract