In Nature Communications, Alexandra Davies from Professor Margaret Robinson’s lab, CIMR, has uncovered a novel role for the adaptor protein AP-4 in regulating the cellular recycling process autophagy. AP-4 belongs to a family of proteins that select cargo for vesicle transport between specific organelles. Although mutations in AP-4 have been linked to a severe recessive […]

Dr Luca Lotta, MRC Epidemiology Unit, has led research that has identified the possibility of pairing new drugs with statins to reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes. The study, published in published in Jama Cardiology, examines new drugs that lower levels of triglycerides (a type of fat) in blood and concludes that they could […]

A study, by Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan and Professor Paul Edelstein, Department of Medicine, in collaboration with Marcel Behr published in the British Medical Journal, analysed multiple longitudinal epidemiological studies to show that the majority of TB disease manifests soon after infection, with disease rarely occurring more than two years after infection. “If you skin test people […]

Research led by Dr Anita Chandra, Department of Medicine, has identified a novel population of B regulatory cells in a mouse model of the human immunodeficiency, Activated PI3Kinase δ syndrome (APDS). In an article published in Nature Communications, the researchers have shown that in a similar way to human patients, mice with APDS are susceptible […]

Dr Ben Hall, MRC Cancer Unit, and his research group have begun exploring how membrane transporters can be used as potential markers or drug targets in the future. Published in Nature Communications, their research shows for the first time that alterations in the expression of these membrane transporters consistently occur in all cancers. Membrane transporters […]

Dr Mark Evans, Department of Medicine and Institute of Metabolic Science, collaborated with researchers in Exeter to study how the specialised hexokinase, glucokinase, works in glucose-sensing cells in body to detect hypoglycemia (low blood glucose). Reporting in Molecular Metabolism, they found that mice and humans with molecular reductions in glucokinase action have increased counter-regulatory hormone […]

Dr Rajiv Chowdhury, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, has led research demonstrating that even low doses of toxic chemicals in the environment pose a significant risk to cardiovascular health. In an article published in The BMJ, the researchers challenged the omission of environmental risk factors such as toxic metal contaminants in water and […]

A recent article by Dr Mariana Pavel from Professor David Rubinsztein’s lab, Department of Medical Genetics, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, identifies that contact inhibition, the process that normally limits cell proliferation and growth when cells contact each other, suppresses autophagy. Contact inhibition is lost in cancerous cells and this leads to tumour formation. Although it […]

Researchers from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, led by Professor Simon Thompson, Dr Michael Sweeting and Dr Katya Masconi, have published important conclusions about screening women for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) in The Lancet. Funded and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the study includes researchers from Imperial College London, […]

Dr Sam Behjati, Wellcome Intermediate Clinical Fellow from the Department of Paediatrics and the Sanger Institute, and colleagues from across the Clinical School reported in Science the precise cellular identity of kidney cancer cells. The team used single cell RNA sequencing technologies, studying just over 70,000 cells derived from tumours and normal kidney tissues representing developing, paediatric […]