Following her PhD in Dundee, Eyers joined the group of Professor
Natalie Ahn in the USA, and was awarded an Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow Award (Pacific/Mountain Affiliate) of the
American Heart Association (2004), held at the
University of Colorado Boulder. Subsequently, in 2005, she returned to the UK to take up a position with Professor
Simon Gaskell as Deputy Head of the
Michael Barber Centre for Mass Spectrometry at the
University of Manchester. Her work in Manchester, a national and international centre of excellence for
mass spectrometry best known for the development of
fast atom bombardment (FAB), involved the development, refinement and application of strategies for protein quantification by mass spectrometry, and gas-phase characterisation of modified peptides and glycans. During her time in Manchester, she also contributed to securing the first bronze (2011) and subsequently silver (2013) and then GOLD
Athena SWAN (Scientific Women's Academic Network) award for the School of Chemistry and Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool. In 2007, Eyers was awarded a personal Royal Society
Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship to set up her own research
proteomics laboratory, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2010. Since 2014, she has been the Professor of Biological Mass Spectrometry in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool and a founder member of the Workload Model Working Group, which oversaw a charter Gold ranking
Athena SWAN award for the IIB and later
ISMIB, both firsts for the
University of Liverpool. Eyers sits on the Selection Committee for
L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science, Professional Body Memberships and is a member of the
Royal Society of Chemistry, the
American Society for Mass Spectrometry, the British Society for Proteome Research (a member of the UK
Biosciences Federation) , the
British Mass Spectrometry Society and the UK
Biochemical Society. Her expertise in protein phosphorylation and biological mass spectrometry have resulted in a number of professional appointments. She is a Former Chair of BBSRC Committee D. Alongside Professors
Sabine Flitsch and
Perdita Barran, Eyers is also Co-founder and Scientific Director of Bio-Shape Ltd, a company specialising in the analysis of proteins, carbohydrates and their conjugates using mass spectrometry-based methods. Eyers' work in biological mass spectrometry focuses on the global and targeted analysis of
post-translational modification on
proteins. She has published over peer-reviewed 150 research articles, has edited two books ('Quantitative Proteomics' published by RSC Press and 'Histidine Phosphorylation: Methods and Protocols published by Springer Press ) and she currently holds two patents. Her most cited publications focus on biochemical, structural, cellular and gas-phase studies of protein phosphorylation, protein kinase complexes and glycan conformation, and several highly-accessed reviews on the subject of ion mobility mass spectrometry for biological molecules. She is highly cited for her analysis of
protein phosphorylation by mass spectrometry, and in 2019 work in her lab led to the discovery that non-canonical
protein phosphorylation on a broad range of amino acids, including Arg, Asp, Cys, Glu, His and Lys is widespread in human cells. This work potentially opens up an entirely new field of 'non-canonical' protein phosphorylation analysis in
prokaryotic and
eukaryotic organisms, where protein phosphorylation represents a reversible switch that transmits intracellular signals in response to extracellular factors. In 2022, Eyers was appointed to the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Health and Life Sciences sub-board which aims to support the growth of the Health and Life Sciences sectors in the local area as well as providing support and access to the extensive knowledge and expertise across the Liverpool City region. ==Awards and honours==