Work
Amazon Development Centre Scotland
Most recently, I've left the academic life and joined Amazon in Edinburgh as a Software Development Engineer. I'm currently working on distributed, big data systems that operate at very low latencies. Strong focus on machine learning, statistical analysis and prediction.
Beatson Institute for Cancer Research
My previous position was at the Beatson Institute in Glasgow within the Peter Adams lab.
The lab is mostly interested in the epigenetics of ageing and cancer. Specifically cellular senescence, the HIRA/UBN1/CABIN1/ASF1a complex and various histone modifications. Tastes were varied within the lab so we did a bunch of other stuff too.
My role was bioinformatics which means I was strictly in silico. I specialised in Next Generation Sequencing and whole genome approaches. Most of my work centred around whole genome studies using ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, Bisulphite-seq and various microarrays. I tended to be involved in a number of projects concurrently.
MATCH
I did my PhD while as part of the MATCH project; which was a collaborative research project between the Universities of Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling. The general idea was to develop a research base for technologies which might support social and health care at home.
At Glasgow we had three main research themes; (i) requirements elicitation, (ii) multimodal interaction and (iii) configuration of dynamic systems.
My work within the project primarily focused on generic methods of choosing appropriate interaction techniques within a complex and/or evolving system (such as a typical ubicomp system). That's the third one from the list above.
Other people at Glasgow who were on the MATCH project are Phil Gray (my supervisor), Marilyn McGee-Lennon, Steve Brewster and Rod Murray-Smith.
Publications
David M Nelson, Farah Jaber-Hijazi, John J Cole, Neil A Robertson, Jeffrey S Pawlikowski, Kevin T Norris, Steven W Criscione, Nikolay A Pchelintsev, Desiree Piscitello, Nicholas Stong, Taranjit Singh Rai, Tony McBryan, Gabriel L Otte, Colin Nixon, William Clark, Harold Riethman, Hong Wu, Gunnar Schotta, Benjamin A Garcia, Nicola Neretti, Duncan M Baird, Shelley L Berger and Peter D Adams. Mapping H4K20me3 onto the chromatin landscape of senescent cells indicates a function in control of cell senescence and tumor suppression through preservation of genetic and epigenetic stability. Genome Biology, 17:158, 2016. Taranjit Singh Rai, John J. Cole, David M. Nelson, Dina Dikovskaya, William J. Faller, Maria Grazia Vizioli, Rachael N. Hewitt, Orchi Anannya, Tony McBryan, Indrani Manoharan, John van Tuyn, Nicholas Morrice, Nikolay A. Pchelintsev, Andre Ivanov, Claire Brock, Mark E. Drotar, Colin Nixon, William Clark, Owen J. Sansom, Kurt I. Anderson, Ayala King, Karen Blyth and Peter D. Adams. HIRA orchestrates a dynamic chromatin landscape in senescence and is required for suppression of neoplasia. Genes & Development, 2014. Kristin Lund, John Cole, Nathan D. VanderKraats, Tony McBryan, Nikolay A. Pchelintsev, William Clark, Mhairi Copland, John R. Edwards and Peter Adams. DNMT inhibitors reverse a specific signature of aberrant promoter DNA methylation and associated gene silencing in AML. Genome Biology, 2014. David M. Nelson, Tony McBryan, Jessie C. Jeyapalan, John M. Sedivy and Peter D. Adams. A comparison of oncogene-induced senescence and replicative senescence : implications for tumor suppression and aging. Age, 2014. Kirstin Lund, John Cole, Tony McBryan, Mhairi Copland and Peter Adams. Investigating effects of epigenetic modulation in acute myeloid leukaemia. Lancet, 383(Supl 1), S70. 2014. Jeffrey W. Hofmann, Tony McBryan, Peter D. Adams and John M. Sedivy. The effects of aging on the expression of Wnt pathway genes in mouse tissues. Age, 2014. N. B. Haas, I. Quirt, S. Hotte, E. McWhirter, R. Polintan, S. Litwin, P. D. Adams, T. McBryan, L. Wang, L. P. Martin, M. vonMehren, R. K. Alpaugh, J. Zweibel and A. Oza. Phase II trial of Vorinostat in advanced melanoma. Investigational New Drugs, 2014. Tony McBryan and Peter D. Adams. Epigenetics. Pharmacogenomics and Stratified Medicines, S. Padmanabhan (Ed.), Elsevier, 2014. Hazel A. Cruickshanks*, Tony McBryan*, David M. Nelson, Nathan D. VanderKraats, Parisha P. Shah, John van Tuyn, Taranjit Singh Rai, Claire Brock, Greg Donahue, Donncha S. Dunican, Mark E. Drotar, Richard R. Meehan, John R. Edwards, Shelley L. Berger and Peter D. Adams. Senescent cells harbor features of the cancer epigenome. Nature Cell Biology, 2013. * Joint first authors. Jeff S. Pawlikowski, Tony McBryan, John van Tuyn, Mark E. Drotar, Rachael N. Hewitt, Andrea B. Maier, Ayala King, Karen Blyth, Hong Wu and Peter D. Adams. Wnt signaling potentiates nevogenesis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 110(40):16009-14, 2013. Parisha P. Shah, Greg Donahue, Gabriel L. Otte, Brian C. Capell, David M. Nelson, Kajia Cao, Varun Aggarwala, Hazel A. Cruickshanks, Taranjit Singh Rai, Tony McBryan, Brian D. Gregory, Peter D. Adams and Shelley L. Berger. Lamin B1 Depletion in Senescent Cells Triggers Large ­Scale Changes in Gene Expression and in the Chromatin Landscape. Genes and Development, 27(16):1787-99, 2013. Lynsey Howard, Ruth M. Mackenzie, Nikolay A. Pchelintsev, Tony McBryan, John D. McClure, Martin W. McBride, Nicole M. Kane, Peter D. Adams, Graeme Milligan and Andrew H. Baker. Profiling of transcriptional and epigenetic changes during directed endothelial differentiation of human embryonic stem cells identifies FOXA2 as a marker of early mesoderm commitment. Stem Cell Research & Therapy, 4(2):36, 2013. PDF Link Nikolay A. Pchelintsev, Tony McBryan, Taranjit Singh Rai, John van Tuyn, Dominique Ray-Gallet, Geneviève Almouzni and Peter D. Adams. Placing the HIRA Histone Chaperone Complex in the Chromatin Landscape. Cell Reports, 3(4):1012-9, 2013. PDF Link Tony McBryan and Phil Gray. Dynamic Configuration of Home Services. Advances in Home Care Technologies: Results of the MATCH Project, K.J. Turner (Ed.) IOS Press. 2012. PDF Link Pim Dekker, David Gunn, Tony McBryan, Roeland W. Dirks, Diana van Heemst, Fei-Ling Lim, Aart G. Jochemsen, Matty Verlaan-de Vries, Julia Nagel, Peter D. Adams, Hans J. Tanke, Rudi G.J. Westendorp and Andrea B. Maier. Microarray-based identification of age-dependent differences in gene expression of human dermal fibroblasts. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, 133(7):498-507, 2012. PDF Link Taranjit Singh Rai, Aastha Puri, Tony McBryan, Jason Hoffman, Yong Tang, Nikolay Pchelintsev, John van Tuyn, Ronen Marmorstein, David C. Schultz and Peter D. Adams. Human CABIN1 is a functional member of the human HIRA/UBN1/ASF1a histone H3.3 chaperone complex. Molecular and Cellular Biology, 31(19):4107-18, 2011. PDF Link Alyssa L. Kennedy, Jennifer P. Morton, Indrani Manoharan, David M. Nelson, Nigel B. Jamieson, Jeff S. Pawlikowski, Tony McBryan, Brendan Doyle, Colin McKay, Karin A. Oien, Greg H. Enders, Rugang Zhang, Owen J. Sansom and Peter D. Adams Activation of the PIK3CA/AKT pathway suppresses senescence induced by an activated RAS oncogene to promote tumorigenesis. Molecular Cell, 42(1):36-49, 2011. PDF Link Tony McBryan A Generic Approach to the Evolution of Interaction in Ubiquitous Systems. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2011. PDF Link Alyssa L. Kennedy, Tony McBryan, Greg H. Enders, F. Brad Johnson, Rugang Zhang and Peter D. Adams. Senescent mouse cells fail to overtly regulate the HIRA histone chaperone and do not form robust Senescence Associated Heterochromatin Foci. Cell Division, 5:16, 2010. PDF Link Karen Renaud and Tony McBryan. How Viable are Stubblefield and Simon's Inkblots as Password Cues? In Privacy and Usability Methods Pow-wow (PUMP). University of Abertay, Dundee. 2010 PDF Link Tony McBryan and Phil Gray. User Configuration of Activity Awareness. In Distributed Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Bioinformatics, Soft Computing, and Ambient Assisted Living, Salamanca, Spain, 2009. PDF Link Tony McBryan, Marilyn R McGee-Lennon and Phil Gray. An Integrated Approach to Supporting Interaction Evolution in Home Care Systems. In 1st International Conference on Pervasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, Athens, Greece, 2008. PDF Link Tony McBryan and Phil Gray. A Model-Based Approach to Supporting Configuration in Ubiquitous Systems. In Design, Specification and Verification of Interactive Systems 2008, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2008. PDF Link Karen Renaud, Tony McBryan and Paul Siebert. Password cueing with cue(ink)blots. In IADIS Computer Graphics and Visualization 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2008. PDF Link Marilyn McGee-Lennon, Maria Wolters and Tony McBryan. Audio Reminders in the Home Environment. In International Community on Auditory Displays, Montreal, Canada, 2007. PDF Link Philip Gray, Tony McBryan, Chris Martin, Nubia Gil, Maria Wolters, Neil Mayo, Ken Turner, Liam Docherty, Feng Wang and Mario Kolberg. A Scalable Home Care System Infrastructure Supporting Domiciliary Care. Technical Report CSM-173, University of Stirling, 2007. PDF Link Tony McBryan and Phil Gray. A Generic Approach to the Evolution of Interaction in Ubiquitous and Context-Aware Systems. Technical Report TR-2007-260, University of Glasgow, 2007. PDF Link Tony McBryan. Textual Associations from Images Applied to Authentication Masters (M.Sci.) Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2006. PDF Link