Introduction

Research Groups

Select Research Group Head Prof. Sir Tom Blundell Prof. Kevin Brindle Dr Bill Broadhurst Dr Guy Brown Dr Mark Carrington Prof. Paul Dupree Prof. Gerard Evan - Head of Dept Prof. Richard Farndale Dr Giorgio Favrin Dr Jenny Gallop Dr Nick Gay Dr Andrew Grace Dr Jules Griffin Dr Brian Hendrich Dr Andrew Hesketh Dr Robin Hesketh Dr Matt Higgins Dr Florian Hollfelder Dr Hee-Jeon Hong Prof. Chris Howe Dr Marko Hyvonen Prof. Steve Jackson Dr Tony Jackson Prof. Richard Jackson Prof. Ernest Laue Prof. Peter Leadlay Dr Kathryn Lilley Dr Karen Lipkow Dr Rick Livesey Prof. Ben Luisi Dr Sarah Lummis Dr Juan Mata Dr John McCafferty Prof. Jim Metcalfe Dr Masanori Mishima Dr Eric Miska Dr Tom Monie Dr Helen Mott Dr Natasha Murzina Dr Daniel Nietlispach Dr Darerca Owen Prof. Steve Oliver Dr Luca Pellegrini Dr Markus Ralser Dr Nick Robinson Prof. George Salmond Dr Deirdre Scadden Dr José Silva Prof. Austin Smith Prof. Chris Smith Dr Nancy Standart Prof. Dame Jean Thomas Dr Aviva Tolkovsky Dr Martin Welch Dr Joyce Wong Dr Nianshu Zhang

Service & Research Support Facilities

Select by Subject or Manager DNA Sequencing Facility . . . . . Mr John Lester _______________________________ Quantitative Proteomics . . . . . Dr Kathryn Lilley _______________________________ Proteomics Core Services . . . . . Dr Mike Deery _______________________________ Protein & Nucleic Acid Chemistry . . . . . Dr Len Packman _______________________________ Metabolomics . . . . . Dr Jules Griffin _______________________________ Baculovirus Facility . . . . . Dr Darerca Owen _______________________________ Biophysics Facility . . . . . Dr Katherine Stott _______________________________ Crystallographic X-ray Facility . . . . . Dr Dima Chirgadze _______________________________ NMR spectroscopy . . . . . Dr Daniel Nietlispach _______________________________ Fermentation Facility . . . . . Dr Nianshu Zhang _______________________________ Bioinformatics & Computational Biology Services . . . . . Dr Jenny Barna _______________________________ Computer & IT Support . . . . . Dr Erik Timmers _______________________________

Past members last known active weblink

Select past member of Department Dr Stephen Bell Prof. Jonathan Blackburn Dr David Brown Dr Pak-Lee Chau Dr Hal Dixon (deceased) Dr Jessica Downs Prof. David Ellar Dr Paul Kemp Dr Simon Lovell Dr Kenji Mizuguchi Dr Massimo Paoli Prof. Richard Perham Dr Peter Reynolds Dr Philip Rubery Dr Gerry Smith Dr Margaret Sunde Prof. Jamie Vandenberg Dr Kira Weissman

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Molecular mechanism of cytokinesis

Research Groupings: Cancer | Structural and molecular cell biology

Cytokinesis is essential for cell proliferation. Failure of cytokinesis leads to aneuploidy or chromosomal instability, which has been associated with human cancers. Successful cytokinesis relies on a dynamic interplay between microtubules, the actin cytoskeleton, and membrane compartments under the control of the cell cycle machinery. In spite of its importance, the molecular mechanism of cytokinesis in animal cells has not yet been fully clarified.

We would like to better understand cytokinesis in terms of dynamic assembly of molecular machinery. The central spindle is a microtubule-based molecular assembly that forms between the segregating chromosomes during anaphase. During telophase, it associates with the ingressing cleavage furrow and matures into the midbody. These microtubule-based structures have crucial roles through all the steps of cytokinesis from initiation to completion. We will address the following questions.

• How is the central spindle/midbody assembled?
• How does the central spindle/midbody contribute to the progression of cytokinesis at the molecular level?

We will focus on centralspindlin, a stable protein complex of a mitotic kinesin-like protein and a Rho-family GTPase-activating protein (RhoGAP), which is crucial for assembly of the central spindle and the midbody. We will characterise the dynamic behaviour of centralspindlin and investigate centralspindlin-interacting proteins by using mammalian cultured cells and C. elegans embryos as model systems. In addition to biochemical and genetical analyses, live imaging both at single molecule level in vitro and at subcellular level in vivo will be performed. We will also develop experimental strategies to (in)activate molecules of interest in vivo in a reasonable time resolution to dissect the molecular mechanism of cytokinesis.

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