Summary
Job Title: Professor and Head of Section of Cell Biology and Functional Genomics
Research: Signal transduction in the pancreatic β-cell in health and disease - my chief focus is in using functional genomics at the cellular and whole organism level to dissect the role of genes associated with Type 2 diabetes.
Brief Biosketch: After studying for a PhD in Bristol with Dick Denton FRS on mitochondrial Ca2+ signalling, I subsequently worked on the pancreatic β-cell as an MRC travelling Fellow with Claes Wollheim in Geneva. There, working collaboratively with Tullio Pozzan and Rosario Rizzuto in Padua, I established new approaches to exploring the control of insulin release at the single cell level through the use of recombinant target probes and other techniques. I then returned to Bristol, becoming a full Professor of Biochemistry in 2002, and moved to Imperial College in 2006.
My current research is supported by Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and Royal Society Wolfson Merit Awards, by UK Research Council and Diabetes UK grants, as well as by the European Commission Innovative Medicines Initiative in Diabetes (IMIDIA).
Prizes and Awards: I was awarded the Minkowski Prize of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in 2004, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Mary Jane Krugel Award (2005), a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2011), a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award (2012) and the Dorothy Hodgkin Lecturehip of Diabetes UK (2014).
Research Support. Supported by Programme and other grants from the Wellcome Trust, MRC, DUK, JDRF, BBSRC, NIH, BHF and EU.
Related links to Section of Cell Biology and Functional Genomics and Imperial Beta Cell Consortium
Publications
Journals
Tuncay E, Bitirim CV, Olgar Y, et al., 2019, Zn2+-transporters ZIP7 and ZnT7 play important role in progression of cardiac dysfunction via affecting sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum-mitochondria coupling in hyperglycemic cardiomyocytes., Mitochondrion, Vol:44, Pages:41-52
Gromada J, Chabosseau P, Rutter GA, 2018, The alpha-cell in diabetes mellitus, Nature Reviews Endocrinology, Vol:14, ISSN:1759-5029, Pages:694-704
Izzi-Engbeaya C, Comninos AN, Clarke SA, et al., 2018, The effects of kisspeptin on beta-cell function, serum metabolites and appetite in humans, Diabetes Obesity & Metabolism, Vol:20, ISSN:1462-8902, Pages:2800-2810
Nguyen-Tu M-S, Xavier GDS, Leclerc I, et al., 2018, Transcription factor-7-like 2 (TCF7L2) gene acts downstream of the Lkb1/Stk11 kinase to control mTOR signaling,beta cell growth, and insulin secretion (vol 293, pg 14178, 2018), Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol:293, ISSN:0021-9258, Pages:18420-18420
Benninger RKP, Dorrell C, Hodson DJ, et al., 2018, The Impact of Pancreatic Beta Cell Heterogeneity on Type 1 Diabetes Pathogenesis, Current Diabetes Reports, Vol:18, ISSN:1534-4827