Rate My Professor Peter Mace

Professor Peter Mace is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Associate Dean (Research) for the Division of Health Sciences at the University of Otago. He completed his BSc (Hons) and PhD at the University of Otago, undertaking his doctoral research under Associate Professor John Cutfield. After postdoctoral work with Professor Catherine Day at Otago and a three-year postdoctoral position at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in California, he returned to the University in 2013 on a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship. His achievements led to promotion to Professor in 2024, marked by his Inaugural Professorial Lecture. Previously, he served as Associate Dean (Research) for the School of Biomedical Sciences. Mace is President of the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Mace leads a research group studying protein interactions that regulate development, metabolism, and signalling in humans and plants, emphasizing regulated proteolysis and kinase signalling for applications in biotechnology and medicine. His investigations cover ubiquitin ligases such as COP1 and pseudokinase substrate adaptors like Tribbles in immune and metabolic signalling, stress-activated MAP kinases including ASK1 and MEKK1, protein degradation in plant development integrating light, temperature, and circadian signals, and synthetic nanobodies via yeast surface display and computational design for diagnostics and therapeutics. Techniques employed include X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy to reveal protein structures with implications for drug design in cancer, inflammation, and metabolic diseases. Key publications include "DET1 dynamics underlie cooperative ubiquitination by CRL4^DET1-COP1 complexes" (Burgess et al., Science Advances, 2025), "A massive machine regulates cell death" (Mace & Day, Science, 2023), "Structure and mechanism of a tripartite ATP-independent periplasmic TRAP transporter" (Davies et al., Nature Communications, 2023), "Nanobodies identify an activated state of the TRIB2 pseudokinase" (Jamieson et al., Structure, 2022), and studies on ASK1 (Trevelyan et al., Science Signaling, 2020) and MEKK1 (Filipčík et al., PNAS, 2020). His research is funded by the Marsden Fund, Health Research Council of New Zealand, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and the University of Otago. Honors include the Rowheath Trust Award, Carl Smith Medal, ThermoFisher Scientific Award, University of Otago Early Career Award for Distinction in Research, and fellowships from the Division of Health Sciences and United States Department of Defense.