Anthony Whetton

Overview

Professor Tony Whetton is currently the Director of the Stoller Biomarker Discovery Centre and the Manchester Precision Medicine Institute at the University of Manchester. He is past Director of the Leukaemia Research Fund Cellular Development Unit and is now Director of the Leukaemia Research Fund Mass Spectrometry Unit based at the Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre, Christie Hospital. He obtained a PhD in signal transduction research and biophysical chemistry. This was followed by one year of research into membrane structure using electron spin resonance techniques. He then moved into a completely different field of experimental haematology, with two years postdoctoral research in the Experimental Haematology section of the Paterson Institute. He left this position to take up a lectureship at UMIST in 1984 where he became the Professor of Cell Biology in 1995 and Head of Department in 2001. He joined the School of Medicine at the University of Manchester in 2003 as Professor of Cancer Cell Biology, based at the Christie Hospital. Here he has established a state of the art biological mass spectrometry facility for stem cell and leukaemia research. He is currently systematically defining the downstream proteomic and phosphoproteomic effects of the protein tyrosine kinases associated with myeloproliferative disorders and myeloid leukaemias to discover common mechanisms for leukaemic transformation. This research has recently expanded and developed to include a clinical proteomics research capability, where the objective is to discover new biomarkers associated with the cancers. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Gene and Cell Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, USA where he works with the Black Family Stem Cell Institute, using proteomics to define embryonic stem cell differentiation control.

Biography

Tony Whetton obtained his first degree from the University of Manchester and a PhD from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). Since this training in biochemistry he has pursued research in haematology and stem cell biology. This was firstly at Christie Hospital, then UMIST, where he was Professor of Cell Biology, and since 2003 at the Christie Hospital, University of Manchester. He has been the Director of the Leukaemia Research Fund Cellular Development Unit since its inception in 1990 and the Co-Director of the Leukaemia Research Fund (LRF) Proteomics Facility since 1999. He leads a laboratory of about 20 people engaged in both stem cell research and the new exciting area of proteomics research.

The current objective of this work is to combine the incisive techniques of proteomics to understand biological processes in normal and leukaemic stem cells. He has been a consultant to many international pharmaceutical and proteomics companies and has extensive experience advising national and international science funding bodies. He has also served as external examiner to higher education institutes overseas as well as in the UK.