Funding success for Esther Sammler to explore the connection between the gut and Parkinson’s disease (PD) in man and mice. A connection between the gut and PD has long been recognized: constipation is a common non-motor symptom that often predates the emergence of motor problems and PD diagnosis by decades.

Emeritus Professor Pierre Descouts (Universite de Geneve) and his wife Christine visited the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit to meet with Dario Alessi, Miratul Muqit, Ian Ganley and Esther Sammler to hear about their exciting research into the causes of Parkinson’s and to go on a tour of the laboratory.

Moira Cardosi, Barbara Lynch and Liz Haughey visited the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit to meet with Director Professor Dario Alessi and other members of the team to hear about our exciting research into Parkinson’s disease.

Luke Fulcher, who has just completed his PhD work in Gopal Sapkota’s lab, has been awarded the prestigious University of Dundee School of Life Sciences Howard Elder Prize for 2019.

MRC PPU researcher receives Brian Cox Prize for Public Engagement

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.