Margaret Frame Research Group

Research in a Nutshell

We work on cell adhesion networks in cancer, with specific focus to date on the regulation and role of the adhesion-linked ‘nodal’ Tyrosine Kinases, and their extensive network of interacting partners. Src and FAK kinases reside at sites of cell interaction with the environment or neighboring cells, and we are studying their wider cellular roles, including at other sub-cellular locale.   Increasingly, we also study other proteins that have cancer-specific adaptor functions – either because they interact with the Src/FAK pathway in adhesion-regulated complexes, or they function in invasion or metastasis. Typically, these proteins regulate a variety of processes that lie at the heart of the cancer problem, namely epithelial plasticity, epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), loss of tissue regulation and tissue architecture, self-renewing properties, resistance to therapy, invasion and metastasis and host-tumour interactions.

• Professor Owen Sansom, CRUK Beatson Institute, University of Glasgow
• Professor Val Brunton, University of Edinburgh
• Professor Neil Carragher, University of Edinburgh
• Professor Walter Witke, University of Bonn
• Professor Ivan Dikic, University of Frankfurt
• Professor Laura Machesky, CRUK Beatson Institute, University of Glasgow
• Professor Maddy Parsons, King’s College London
• Professor Duncan Graham, University of Strathclyde
• Professor Mark Bradley, University of Edinburgh
• Dr Alan Serrels, University of Edinburgh
• Dr Kevin Dhaliwal, University of Edinburgh
• Dr Steven Pollard, University of Edinburgh

• Cancer Research UK
• European Research Council
• Medical Research Council