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

Reset Menus

Unfolding New Routes to Prevention of Neuronal Cell Death

untreated Na Arsenite

H-K Wong Demise of cortical neurons treated with the environmental toxin Na arsenite (right, 24 h). Arrows show nuclei fragmented due to apoptosis.

polyQ97polyQ25

F Hafiz & A Wyttenbach Sympathetic neurons expressing a green fluorescent protein fused to exon1 of the Htt gene containing a string of 97 (Inclusions,left) or 25 (diffuse, right) glutamines

+NGF- NGF+ caspase inh

C Goemans Mitochondrial changes during limoktonia: from normal to clustered to eliminated visualised after delivery of a red fluorescent protein to mitochondria of sympathetic neurons.

Research Grouping: Neuroscience

Our research is focused on understanding the causes of neurodegeneration at the cellular level. Neuro-degeneration affects people of all ages and leads to irreversible loss of cognitive and/or physical functions. In the majority of cases, the mechanisms of degeneration are still unknown, limiting the scope of neuroprotective therapies. In addition to studying ischaemic- and diabetes-related degeneration, we are studying death imposed by the environmental toxin arsenite and inclusion bodies made of protein containing polyglutamine (polyQ) repeats, as in Huntington’s disease. Arsenite imposes a very complex dominant death mechanism because sequential waves of new death signals are recruited continuously over time. Our main objective is to delineate how many death signal motifs there are (i.e. can death signalling be exhausted) and to complete the description of the ‘wiring’ diagram that connects the signals to their respective death proteins using genomic and pharmacological manipulation. With regard to PolyQ proteins, our data suggest that the inclusions they form cause a novel mechanism of death. We are therefore trying to understand how death is governed and whether we can harness autophagy, a dormant protein clearance and cell nutritive pathway, to reduce toxic inclusion size. We are also pursuing a form of cell death we discovered a few years ago, which we termed limoktonia (meaning death by famine). Most especially we are concentrating on understanding what induces mitochondria – the power factories of the cell - to disappear during this death and what can be done to preserve these vital organelles. We hope our studies will highlight possible therapeutic targets and contribute to the development of useful long-term neuroprotective therapies.

Lab members
Michael Fricker

References