Professor @ox.ac.uk
We use zebrafish to study how cancer starts and spreads.
Richard White
The true highlight of an academic career is seeing trainees find their own path. My former postdoc @shruthysa.bsky.social is such a passionate scientist, and her institute made a profile about her and the work she is doing on metastasis. She is so inspiring - check it out: x.com/IGIBSocial/s...
The implications are pretty clear: while DNA mutations and chemical signals from the environment are important, physical pressure is just as important in letting cancer cells take on new behaviours.
Pleased that I have been awarded a Professorship grant from the UK Academy of Medical Sciences - to support new directions for the lab using #zebrafish models of #melanoma. And congrats to the other awardees Philip Shaw from King's College London and Mark Dewey from Oxford.
Using a combination of #zebrafish and human #melanoma cells, she discovered that when cells are mechanically confined, this turns up chromatic factors like HMGB2, rewiring them to be more invasive and drug resistant.
My favorite part? This was driven by Miranda’s curiosity. She noticed that the cells in the tumor looked squeezed, and then followed the trail all the way to mechanism and implications.
A really nice Research Briefing on Miranda's @mrndhntr.bsky.social paper. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1038/d415...
Zebrafish people! The @ZDMSociety annual meeting is in Boston this year, with a great lineup. Abstract submission is closing May 27th. Go register now for this always fun conference #zebrafish www.zdmsociety.org/zdm18-home
Cancer cells are notoriously plastic, but what triggers the changes in cell state? In our new Nature (@nature.com) paper, Miranda Hunter (@mrndhntr.bsky.social) found that mechanical pressure is a key to this switch. Check it out here: go.nature.com/47iwDm2
And a special thanks to our many collaborators and funding from the @melanomaresearch.bsky.social, @NIH_CommonFund, @theNCI and @ludwigcancer.bsky.social
Hey everyone - the annual SMR #melanoma meeting in beautiful Amsterdam is coming up. Always a fantastic lineup of research spanning basic, translational and clinical. We also have a great trainee "pre-SMR" meeting, with top talks being selected for the main meeting. Join us! smrcongress.org
