Dundee Cancer and Diabetes Research Receive Significant Funding

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grants totalling more than £1 million are to fund two University of Dundee scientists with their research into cancer and diabetes. Professor Anton Gartner has received £750,000 of funding , while Professor Hari Hundal was also awarded more than £630,000 for a joint project with Robert Gordon University. Of this, £411,233 will be used to fund the Dundee component of the research. Three Postdoctoral positions will be created at Dundee’s School of Life Sciences as a result of both awards.

Professor Gartner said, “This is a generous award which will allow us to work out a ‘last chance saloon’ mechanism that allows cells to fix DNA linkages between separating chromosomes just before cells divide. Support for two postdoctoral positions will allow us to work out the details of this mechanism."

Professor Gartner’s lab recently discovered a new mechanism used by cells to protect chromosome integrity. This pathway allows cells to resolve DNA linkages between separating chromosomes just before cells divide. Failure in these mechanisms result in pathologies linked to cancer development and the team now want to understand this process in greater detail. The funded project is supported by Professors David Lilley and John Rouse.

Professor Hundal’s research focuses on cell signalling in relation to diabetes and obesity. The over-arching aim of the BBSRC-funded project is to explore links between a lipid-sensing protein, called GPR55, which is present on the blood-facing membranes of fat, liver and muscle and processes influencing adiposity (fatness), inflammation and responsiveness to insulin within these tissues.

“BBSRC funding is highly competitive and sought after,” said Professor Hundal. “Consequently, I am delighted to have been awarded this grant, which represents the third successive tranche of support that my group has received from the research council in recent years. “We are hopeful that the findings that emerge from this work will establish GPR55 as a novel therapeutic target in the future treatment of metabolic disorders linked to the growing prevalence of obesity and diabetes in our society.”