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Past BSPR Lecturers
2023-24 | Prof. Sara Zanivan
We are pleased to have had Prof Sara Zanivan from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, University of Glasgow, as our BSPR Lecturer.
Sara’s main area of research is cancer biology. Her research focuses on understanding how the cells called cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) contribute to tumour development and resistance to anti-cancer therapies., with the overarching goal to find ways to target CAFs to improve the success of anti-cancer treatments. Sara is fascinated by the biology of these cells, which have the unique ability to secrete myriad of proteins, such as extracellular matrix components, cytokines and extracellular vesicles, which play key roles to support cancer by influencing the behaviour of other cell types found in tumours, including cancer and immune cells. Her lab develops and uses MS proteomics approaches that can be used with both cell cultures and pre-clinical models and that have been fundamental to unravel new roles of CAF in cancer.
More recently Sara has developed an additional line of research to develop plasma proteomic methodologies for biomarker discovery. Sara leads the “Tumour Microenvironment & Proteomics” lab and the Advance Technology Proteomic Facility at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute in Glasgow and is Professor of Tumour Stroma Biology at the University of Glasgow.
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In her role as BSPR Lecturer, over the coming year Sara will be presenting a lecture on “Harnessing cell metabolism to establish an anti-tumour stroma and for biomarker discovery”. In this lecture She highlights how MS proteomics can be used to achieve new levels of understanding in cancer biology, including to study cell extracellular matrix, the interplay between metabolism and protein synthesis, redox signalling, cell-cell communication and for the discovery of biomarkers of early cancer circulating in the blood.​
2020-23 | Prof. Claire Eyers
The 2020 BSPR Lecturer was Professor Claire Eyers from the Institute of Integrative Biology (IIB) at the University of Liverpool. Claire is the Director of the Centre for Proteome Research (CPR), and Research and is impact lead for the Institute of Integrative Biology and Deputy APVC for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences.
Her research employs biophysical and biochemical methodologies to elucidate the structure and function of post-translational modifications regulating cell signalling in health and disease. Her lab has developed LC-MS-based methods, including ion mobility MS to investigate the structure of proteins and the effects of PTM’s and ligand binding.
Claire offered the following lectures:
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The Expanding Landscape of Human Protein Phosphorylation
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The Top to Bottom of phosphorylation-mediated signaling with mass spectrometry​
Prof Eyers Inaugral lectures, hosted by the London Proteomics Discussion Group webinar and chaired by Prof. Kathryn Lilley on 7th August, 2020, entitled “The Expanding Landscape of Human Protein Phosphorylation” can be viewed here
2019-20 | Prof. Angus Lamond
The 2019 BSPR Lecturer is Professor Angus Lamond from the University of Dundee. Angus is Professor of Biochemistry in The Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression and Director of the Laboratory for Quantitative Proteomics (CITR).
His research group study differential proteomics in healthy and cancer cells and the factors that affect their production and activity. His lab uses human cells as well as nematodes to investigate how they move, divide and change in response to drugs and other signals. They use microscopy to track protein localisation in cells and mass spectrometry to identify and quantify changes in protein abundance. The experiments generate a vast amount of data which must be analysed, visualized and stored. Key to their research is the development of new software to analyse large data sets.
On 24 April, 2019, Angus gave his first BSPR lecture at St Andrews University on the “Genetic Analysis of Human iPS Cells; generating Deep Proteomes and Navigating the Data Mountain.” His second talk, “Deep Proteomes, iPS cells & Data Mountains” was held on 1 May, was at the University of Cambridge.
2017-19 | Prof. Kathyrn Lilley
The 2017-18 BSPR Lecturer was Professor Kathryn Lilley from the University of Cambridge. Kathryn is director of both the Cambridge Centre of Proteomics and Cambridge Systems Biology Centre.
In 2017 she was awarded the EuPA Juan Pablo Albar Proteomics Pioneer award. Her primary areas of research are spatial proteomics and protein moonlighting. The laboratory employs a wide range of methods, including mass spectrometry, next-generation sequencing, cellular fractionation and machine learning. The lectures she gave for the BSPR were on ‘proteomics design and quantitation’ and ‘proteomics approaches to map the three-dimensional cell.’ The first talk was mainly for biologists who are new to quantitative proteomics. Here, Kathryn describes the importance of experimental and analytical design to obtain robust data. The second was for cell biologists with some knowledge of proteomics. In it, she demonstrates that it is possible to map dynamic changes in protein relocalisation with high-resolution.
