Research Interests

BRAF Inhibitors

BRAF is a serine/threonine protein kinase, part of a pathway involved in cell division. Our colleagues Professors Michael Stratton, Chris Marshall and Richard Marais discovered that the BRAF gene is mutated in human cancers: ~ 50 % in melanomas and ~ 10 % in colorectal cancers. As a consequence of the mutation, the BRAF protein is constitutively activated in cells.

Lysyl oxidase (LOX) Inhibitors

LOX is a protein that is produced and secreted by tumour cells, in response to hypoxia-inducible and other factors, leading to increased invasion and the promotion of the ’metastatic niche‘, thereby enabling the formation of metastases at distant sites. LOX is an extracellular copper enzyme that catalyses the formation of reactive species from lysine residues in collagens and elastin in the extracellular matrix, which results in cross-linking of the proteins.