
Research Area V - Signalling
Research Area V covers the broad areas of receptors, ion channels, endocrine systems, cytokines, cell cycle, cell growth and differentiation, cell adhesion, second messengers, kinases, phosphatases, lipid mediators, post-translational modifications, transcription/translation, nuclear interactions, nuclear receptors, pre-and post-synaptic signalling, protein phosphorylation, G-proteins, scaffolds, drug discovery, molecular pharmacology, computer-aided drug design and redox signalling.
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Research Area V - Signalling
9 members

Tim Palmer
Tim Palmer

Tim is currently Professor and Chair of Cardiovascular Biology at the Hull York Medical School Centre for Biomedicine at the University of Hull, UK. His research examines the cell signalling mechanisms responsible for the development of cardiovascular disease.
Tim received a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester, and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Glasgow under the direction of Professor Miles Houslay. During his post-doctoral studies, he examined the molecular basis of adenosine receptor desensitisation, securing an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. He then returned to Glasgow in 1997 as a Lecturer in Biochemistry before moving to the University of Bradford to take up a Chair in Pharmacology in 2015.
Keywords: Cytokine signalling, vascular biology, inflammation, JAK-STAT

Atanu Chakraborty
Atanu Chakraborty

Dr. Chakraborty received his PhD from Indian Institute of Science, India, exploring bacterial transcriptional regulation. He went on to join London Research Institute (CRUK), now Francis Crick Institute, in London for his postdoctoral research where he investigated the oncogenic signalling and cooperation between RAS and cJun in lung and colorectal cancer development. He joined AstraZeneca Oncology Bioscience team in 2015 where he has worked on multiple oncology drug discovery programmes. Currently, he is leading the bioscience strategy for projects, focused mainly on the RAS-MAPK pathway, to develop targeted therapeutics. He is also a serving member of the Biochemical Society Research Area V from 2021.
Keywords: RAS, Cancer, Drug development

Benjamin Foster
Benjamin Foster
Ben carried out his Bachelors and Masters studies in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before moving to the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences to start his doctoral research with Dr Till Bartke.
During his PhD in London, Ben was investigating the role of combinatorial chromatin modifications and how they are written and read by chromatin reader proteins. Ben continued this research at the Institute of Functional Epigenetics at the Helmholtz Zentrum in Munich as a postdoc with Dr Bartke, focussing on how UHRF1 ubiquitylates histone H3 for its role in maintaining DNA methylation after replication. As a postdoc in Oxford, Ben was investigating the biochemical activity and function of a group of enzymes known as deubiquitylases associated with DNA repair pathways. Currently, he is at the University of Manchester in the group of Christine Schmidt focussing on how both ubiquitin-like modifications and intrinsically disordered regions within proteins function in genome stability.
Ben is an ECR representative on Research Area V (Signalling) and a member of the Early Career Advisory Panel (ECAP) within the Biochemical Society.
Keywords: Ubiquitin, chromatin, DNA repair

Venkateswarlu Kanamarlapudi
Venkateswarlu Kanamarlapudi

Keywords: GPCR, Monomeric G-proteins, PI 3-kinase, Inositol lipids, Signalling pathways in disease, Membrane trafficking, Molecular Pharmacology, Cancer, Platelets

Pamela Lochhead
Pamela Lochhead

Pamela received a PhD in Biochemistry from the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit at the University of Dundee studying the signalling pathways that regulated hepatic gene expression. She then conducted postdoctoral research at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, then moved to a Senior Scientist position at the Babraham Institute, investigating the role and regulation of kinases down-stream from the proto-oncogene RAS which are involved in development and cancer. During this time she was involved in a number of Academic/Industry collaborations.
Excited by proximity inducing drugs such as PROTACs and molecular glues to induce target degradation or other beneficial protein: protein interactions, she moved to the department of Mechanistic & Structural Biology, Discovery Sciences at AstraZeneca in 2020. Here she has worked on a number of Oncology drug discovery programmes.

Darerca Owen
Darerca Owen

Darerca received a BSc in Genetics and a PhD in Molecular Biology, studying DNA damage responses in bacteria, from the University of Liverpool. She then moved to the Department of Cancer Studies, University of Birmingham, to start her post-doctoral research where she studied the oncoprotein Ras and its interaction with regulators. She continued her interest in small G protein-controlled signalling pathways and moved to the Department of Biochemistry in Cambridge, to study structure-function relationships in small G protein-effector complexes. She established her group in Biochemistry in Cambridge and her research continues to focus on the control of intricate networks of intracellular signalling pathways by small GTPases and their utility as therapeutic targets.

Helen Wheadon
Helen Wheadon

Keywords: Leukaemia, Stem Cells, Morphogenic Signalling Pathways, Translational Medicine

Qian Wu
Qian Wu
Qian Wu obtained her BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol. She then pursued a PhD and conducted post-doctoral research in the Professor Sir Tom Blundell group at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, focusing on the structural and functional studies of protein complexes involved in DNA repair of double-strand breaks. In September 2018, she was awarded a University Academic Fellowship from the University of Leeds, allowing her to establish her independent research group in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Her group aims to unravel the fundamental mechanisms underlying the human DDR signalling network.
Keywords: Structural biology, DNA repair, signalling, protein tool

Shambhu Yadav
Shambhu Yadav
I am a redox biochemist with experience in both basic and translational research, currently serving as a Research Fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I hold a masters in molecular genetics and protein engineering and a Ph.D. in redox biochemistry and sulphur metabolism under Prof. Anand K. Bachhawat from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Mohali, India. I then pursued my first postdoctoral research fellowship studying ion channels and small GTPase trafficking. For my second postdoctoral fellowship, I joined the laboratory of Professor Thomas Michel at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School where I have been characterizing new chemogenetic/transgenic models to dissect the role of cellular oxidants in cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases.
Keywords: Redox Signalling, Calcium Signalling, Sulphur Metabolism, Glutathione, neurodegenerative diseases, and Neurovascular and Cardiovascular Biology