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
de Jesus DS, Mak TCS, Wang Y-F, et al., 2021, Dysregulation of the Pdx1/Ovol2/Zeb2 axis in dedifferentiated β-cells triggers the induction of genes associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition in diabetes, Molecular Metabolism, Vol:53, ISSN:2212-8778
Marzook A, Chen S, Pickford P, et al., 2021, Evaluation of efficacy- versus affinity-driven agonism with biased GLP-1R ligands P5 and exendin-F1, Biochemical Pharmacology, Vol:190, ISSN:0006-2952, Pages:1-12
Slieker RC, Donnelly LA, Fitipaldi H, et al., 2021, Replication and cross-validation of type 2 diabetes subtypes based on clinical variables: an IMI-RHAPSODY study, Diabetologia, ISSN:0012-186X
Parks SZ, Gao T, Awuapura NJ, et al., 2021, The Ca2+-binding protein sorcin stimulates transcriptional activity of the unfolded protein response mediator ATF6, Febs Letters, ISSN:0014-5793
Amouyal C, Castel J, Guay C, et al., 2021, A surrogate of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (the enterogastro anastomosis surgery) regulates multiple beta-cell pathways during resolution of diabetes in ob/ob mice (vol 58, 102895, 2020), Ebiomedicine, Vol:66, ISSN:2352-3964