Summary
Job Title: Professor 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
Publications
Journals
Jones B, Burade V, Akalestou E, et al., 2022, In vivo and in vitro characterization of GL0034, a novel long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, Diabetes Obesity & Metabolism, ISSN:1462-8902
Cheung R, Pizza G, Chabosseau P, et al., 2022, Glucose-Dependent miR-125b Is a Negative Regulator of β-Cell Function., Diabetes, Vol:71, Pages:1525-1545
Cao H, Chung ACK, Ming X, et al., 2022, Autotaxin signaling facilitates β cell dedifferentiation and dysfunction induced by Sirtuin 3 deficiency, Molecular Metabolism, Vol:60, ISSN:2212-8778, Pages:101493-101493
Cruciani-Guglielmacci C, Meneyrol K, Denom J, et al., 2022, Homocysteine metabolism pathway is involved in the control of glucose homeostasis: a cystathionine beta synthase deficiency study in mouse, Cells, Vol:11, ISSN:2073-4409
Akalestou E, Lopez-Noriega L, Tough IR, et al., 2022, Vertical sleeve gastrectomy lowers SGLT2/Slc5a2 expression in the mouse kidney, Diabetes, Vol:71, ISSN:0012-1797