Summary
Birgit Leitinger joined Imperial College London in 2005 as a Lecturer and is currently Reader in Matrix Receptor Signalling.
She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Basel, Switzerland. In 1996 she joined the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London as a postdoctoral fellow, working with Dr Nancy Hogg in cell adhesion. In 2001 she moved to UCL, Department of Medicine, where she started her independent research as a Senior Research Fellow.
Her group's principal research interests are in cell adhesion, the interactions of cells with the extracellular matrix, and the mechanism of activation of cellular receptors. Work in her lab has been funded by the BBSRC and MRC.
She has major teaching roles in the BSc Medical Biosciences as Module Lead for one of the core modules in Year 1 and Head of Assessment and Feedback for the entire programme.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Sammon D, Hohenester E, Leitinger B, 2020, Two-step release of kinase autoinhibition in discoidin domain receptor 1, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol:117, ISSN:0027-8424, Pages:22051-22060
Jalan A, Sammon D, Hartgerink J, et al., 2020, Chain alignment of collagen I deciphered using computationally designed heterotrimers, Nature Chemical Biology, Vol:16, ISSN:1552-4450, Pages:423-429
Corcoran D, Juskaite V, Xu Y, et al., 2019, DDR1 autophosphorylation is a result of aggregation into dense clusters, Scientific Reports, Vol:9, ISSN:2045-2322
Vehlow A, Klapproth E, Jin S, et al., 2019, Interaction of discoidin domain receptor 1 with a 14-3-3-Beclin-Akt1 complex modulates glioblastoma therapy sensitivity, Cell Reports, Vol:26, ISSN:2211-1247, Pages:3672-3683
Malcor J-D, Juskaite V, Gavriilidou D, et al., 2018, Coupling of a specific photoreactive triple-helical peptide to crosslinked collagen films restores binding and activation of DDR2 and VWF, Biomaterials, Vol:182, ISSN:0142-9612, Pages:21-34
Juskaite V, Corcoran DS, Leitinger B, 2017, Collagen induces activation of DDR1 through lateral dimer association and phosphorylation between dimers, Elife, Vol:6, ISSN:2050-084X, Pages:1-27
Gao H, Chakraborty G, Zhang Z, et al., 2016, Multi-organ site metastatic reactivation mediated by non-canonical discoidin domain receptor 1 signaling, Cell, Vol:166, ISSN:0092-8674, Pages:47-62
An B, Abbonante V, Xu H, et al., 2015, Recombinant Collagen Engineered to Bind to Discoidin Domain Receptors Functions as a Receptor Inhibitor, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol:291, ISSN:1083-351X, Pages:4343-4355