Group Leader:
Nic Jones
I obtained my BSc in Microbiology at University College London in 1971 before completing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 1974 focusing on the link between DNA replication and cell division. My first post-doctoral position took me to the United States and the University of Conneticut Medical school studying bacterial cell division, before moving to set up my own research laboratory in 1978 at Purdue University, Indiana, studying how DNA tumour viruses affect cell proliferation and growth, and key genes involved in viral-mediated transformation of normal cells to cancer cells.
I returned to the UK in 1985 to join the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London and joined the Paterson Institute in 1999 as Director and Group Leader of the Insititute’s Cell Regulation Laboratory. I am also Director of the MCRC, established when the Insititute became part of the University of Manchester in 2006, in collaboration with The Christie and Cancer Research UK.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Yujun Di
Clare Lawrence
Associate Scientists
Wolfgang Breitwieser
Caroline Wilkinson
Graduate Students
Malgorzata Gozdecka
Orestis Mavroudis-Chocholis
Jacek Walczynski
Scientific Officers
Keren Dawson
Steve Lyons
Cell Regulation Group
MAP kinase pathways are remarkably conserved throughout evolution. For example, the stress-activated kinase P38 present in higher eukaryotes has functional orthologs in yeast and is activated by a variety of stress stimuli. In addition, yeast has AP-1-like transcription factors which are downstream of the stress kinase pathway and respond to environmental stress by mediating changes in gene expression.
The Cell Regulation Laboratory is investigating the biological roles and the regulation of the stress-activated transcription factor ATF2 and other close members of the AP-1 family of transcription factor complexes. The biological role of these factors is being studied using a mouse genetics approach. In addition, the laboratory is using fission yeast as a convenient model to gain insights into nature of stress responses and how they are mediated and regulated. Because of the conservation in stress responses, it is anticipated that these insights will be relevant to mammalian cells.
Figure 1 - MAP Kinase Pathways
Functional characteristics of ATF-2
Stress Responses in Fission Yeast