Lab focus: to understand how cells communicate

Our laboratory studies how communication between cells influences health and disease. Our focus is on small soluble proteins called cytokines that can be secreted by one cell type and travel to another cell type to convey a message.

Our overarching goal is to generate new drugs to alter the messages conveyed by cytokines to improve patient quality of life and disease outcomes.

Research interest

The main focus of our laboratory is to define how signal transduction by cytokines can modulate tissue homeostasis, and to understand how deregulation of these signalling pathways can promote numerous diseases, including cancer.

We use cell biology, molecular biology and structural biology techniques to understand how cytokines enable cancers to grow, metastasise and develop resistance to current treatments.

Our goal is to use the knowledge gained to facilitate the development of new therapeutic opportunities.