Growth Research Group

Researchers within the Growth Research Group aim to understand the processes involved in normal cell and tissue growth, and the ways in which these processes function abnormally in disease states. The work is centred on a family of cell growth factors (the insulin-like growth factors or IGFs), and proteins that regulate their activity. IGFs and related proteins play a central role in normal body growth processes, but are also  important in abnormal cell growth and metabolism.

Cancer cell biology forms a major part of the group’s research effort, and other studies, where cancer cells may not be part of the experimental model, also contribute to broad knowledge about mechanisms of cell and body growth. The other major focus concerns the roles played by growth-regulatory proteins in metabolic regulation, of particular relevance to diabetes and catabolic illness.

Some anti-cancer drugs cause cells to die by a process of “programmed cell death” orapoptosis, during which normal cell nuclei (stained blue) disintegrate, or may appear to explode as seen in this picture. Cancer researchers in the Growth Research Group are investigating the ability of IGF binding proteins to destroy cancer cells in this way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The work of the Growth Research Group may be divided into six sections:

  1. Protein Structure and Function
  2. Cellular and Diagnostic Proteomics
  3. Tumour Biology
  4. Gene Regulation
  5. Cell Signalling
  6. Metabolism

 

 

 

 

 

 Updated August 2005