Patrick Caswell

Overview

Integrins and signalling receptors are cell surface proteins which enable the cell to interpret its physical and chemical environment. Together they dictate the fate of the cell: whether to grow, move to new surroundings, differentiate into a specialised cell or die. Failure to respond correctly to the surrounding environment can promote the initiation and progression of diseases such as cancer. We aim to elucidate the mechanisms through which cells interpret and respond accordingly to their surroundings, and determine how these mechanisms are co-opted in cancer. Integrins and signalling receptors reside at the surface of the cell, and inside the cell within specialised compartments called endosomes. Integrins are exchanged between endosomes and the cell surface, and our laboratory investigates the way in which movement of integrins between endosomes and the cell surface controls signalling pathways within the cell that determine the appropriate response to the surrounding environment. This will allow us to understand how cancer cells manipulate integrin trafficking pathways in order to escape the primary tumour and disseminate to form metastases, and how integrin trafficking influences the ability of cells to differentiate.

Biography

Patrick is a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow, based in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research within the Faculty of Life Sciences.

After undergraduate studies at the University of Nottingham, Patrick completed his PhD at the University of Leicester in 2004.  He then moved on to a postdoc at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, until taking up his position at the University of Manchester in July 2010.