Many congratulations to Pat Eyers, a PhD student in Philip Cohen’s laboratory in the MRC PPU from 1996-2000, who has just been promoted to Professor at the University of Liverpool’s, Department of Biochemistry.

A highlight of Pat’s PhD was converting SB203580-insensitive MAP kinase family members such as JNK, to the inhibitor-sensitive forms by a single amino-acid substitution. This was one of the first examples of manipulating the sensitivity of a protein kinase to an inhibitor to decipher its biological functions.

Following the award of his PhD, Pat undertook successful postdoctoral research in James Maller’s lab in Denver USA, where he developed a strong interest in regulation and function of number of important cell cycle regulated protein kinases. In 2005, Pat was awarded a prestigious MRC Career Development Fellowship to set up his laboratory, initially at the University of Manchester. He subsequently moved his lab to the Universities of Sheffield (2008) and then Liverpool (2013).

Pat has undertaken pioneering analysis on many aspects of protein phosphorylation and studied the regulation of diverse protein kinases. He has also developed an innovative program of work and written major reviews and organised conferences on human pseudokinases and pseudoenzymes. Pat also has undertaken research on kinome-wide mechanisms of acquired drug resistance in cancer cells.

Pat is the 30th member of Philip Cohen’s lab to be promoted to rank of Professor. Pat during his PhD also played a major role in the discovery of PDK1 kinase activity, as it was his Q-Sepharose fractionation of rabbit skeletal muscle extract, that the first trace of a kinase activity that activated Akt in the presence of lipid vesicles containing PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 activity was discovered by Dario Alessi in 1996.