Elisabeth has a long-standing expertise in using muscle cells (smooth, skeletal, cardiac) in culture to study biological and disease related questions often using microscopy-based readouts. This knowledge together with her understanding of the cytoskeleton and the cell biology of muscle cells has enabled her to maximally employ artificial environments in a culture dish to get…
Professor Liu’s lab focuses on the development of the neural crest cell population. Undifferentiated neural crest cells undergo epithelial-mesenchymal transformations (EMT), migrate from the neural tube, and populate distant destinations. These cells display incredible plasticity, giving rise to diverse tissues ranging from bone and cartilage to adipocytes and neurons. Persistence of this multipotent population into…
Professor Grigoriadis is a cell biologist interested in how bone and cartilage tissues are formed during embryonic development and in the post-natal remodelling skeleton, and how deregulated molecular mechanisms drive metabolic bone disease, in particular skeletal cancers.
His current research interests lie at the intersection of cellular biophysics and tissue mechanics. He combines fluorescence microscopy, image analysis, mathematical modelling and optogenetics to discover the principles governing collective cellular behaviours. By reconstructing complex tissues dynamics from the bottom up, he aims to reveal how individual cells shape emergent behaviours, and how we can…
Dr Stasiuk is a Reader in Imaging Chemistry at King’s College London. Dr Stasiuk’s research includes design and synthesis of novel multimodal imaging agents for MRI, PET and Optical Imaging. These include both small molecules and nanomaterials, based on inorganic complexes and semiconducting nanoparticles/quantum dots. The research is focused on tools for image guided surgery…
The Isaacson group uses biophysics techniques, including NMR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, to probe macromolecular structure and interactions of molecules relevant to health and disease. Their research questions, largely BBSRC funded, focus on mechanisms for maintaining proteostasis within the crowded cell in both mammalian and bacterial systems.
he biosynthesis of natural products continues to be a vitally important area of research in the search for new antibiotics, anticancer and antimalarial agents and other biologically active compounds. About 80% of clinically used compounds are natural product derived. The biochemical catalysts which orchestrate the creation of these complex compounds are of immense interest as…
Healthcare Nanomaterials have significant application in delivering therapeutic for a variety of diseases from cancer to vaccines. The mode of entry into the cell to give the biggest payload in an effective manner is not yet realised. Currently through liposome or surface protein interaction and endocytosis are non-specific and slow kinetic driven pathways. This project…
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in the UK, with 100 people diagnosed every day. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment for colorectal cancer with around 30,000 operations performed each year in the NHS. Around 50% of patients will be cured by surgery, but 10-15% will develop locoregional disease recurrence due to…
Gene therapies hold immense potential, yet their safety is limited by off-target expression and insufficient control over therapeutic gene regulation. This project aims to engineer a tumour-selective, autoregulatory expression vector integrating promoter specificity with feedback self-limitation. By combining molecular biology, chemical engineering, and computational modelling, the research will develop a modular system that activates therapeutic…