In MRC PPU we are extremely proud that in 2019, a total of 13 PhD students and 1 MSc student defended their theses, and everyone passed with flying colours! As part of the defence, each student gave a 45-minute talk describing their PhD research, to packed lecture rooms.

Katharine Lodge has joined the MRC PPU as the first recipient of an MRC PPU Visiting Clinical Scholarship. She will spend three months in the Unit undertaking state-of-the-art proteomics to uncover novel phosphorylation signalling pathways regulated by hypoxia in human neutrophils.

Researchers at the University of Dundee have investigated the contributions of a key immune communicator molecule, IL-22, in driving colorectal cancer. They made the surprising finding that IL-22 contributes to the initiation of cancer, but once cells are transformed, IL-22 does not affect them.

Rahel Gresz, a 3rd year medical student from the University of Dundee, and Tania Savant, a 4th year neuroscience from the University of St. Andrews, spend their summer working on projects related to Parkinson's disease in the Alessi and Sammler labs.

MRC PPU Researchers have been working to better understand how mutations that increase LRRK2 kinase activity cause Parkinson’s disease. LRRK2 phosphorylates a subset of Rab GTPases including Rab8A and Rab10 within a region of the “Switch-II motif” that controls the interaction with effectors such as RILPL1 and RILPL2.

Members of the MRC PPU recently took part in an exciting event on Parkinson’s and Art organized by Werner Remmele, Secretary of the Dundee Research Interest Group (DRIG), a partnership formed with the University of Dundee and Parkinson’s patients interested in research.

MRC PPU scientists contributed to an interactive art exhibition entitled ‘Misprints’ by artist Daksha Patel held at the Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) on October 8th 2019 during

The serum- and glucocorticoid-regulated kinase-3 (SGK3) contribute resistance to cancer therapies targeting the PI3K pathway. Recent work has shown that the SGK3 isoform is upregulated in breast cancer cells treated with PI3K or Akt inhibitors and recruited and activated at endosomes, through its phox homology domain binding to PtdIns(3)P.

On October 1st 1969 Philip Cohen became a postdoc in Edmond Fischer’s lab at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA and started his research on protein phosphorylation.

On Sunday, 29 September 2019, researchers and friends from the MRC PPU including Professor Dario Alessi ran the Glasgow 10K race as part of Marc van Grieken’s “Shaky Team from Shaky Toun” to raise awareness and money for research into Parkinson’s disease.