Research

Research in the Department is carried out by several strong, independent but interrelated groups addressing the challenges of modern biomedical research. The research programmes include many aspects of neuroscience, cardiac science, cellular physiology, endocrinology, developmental biology and functional genetics. To implement a coherent scientific strategy, while encouraging individual freedom, researchers are brought together under six specific research themes highlighted below, including themes that cut across all research in the department. In addition, research in multiple themes impacts on our understanding of many human diseases. This structure promotes a range of innovative multidisciplinary basic research programmes, some of which translate all the way to the clinic.

FeatureIon Channels, Transporters and Signalling
  This theme is studied at many levels in DPAG, from structural studies of ion channels and transporters, to the functional roles of these molecules and signalling cascades within cells and organs, right up to their role in behaviour and human disease
FeatureFunctional Genomics
Genomics has created new lines of investigation, not only in basic biology, but also now in translational research due to the advent of more efficient, and cost-effective, sequencing technologies. DPAG is playing a leading role in some of these developments
FeatureNeuroscience
DPAG hosts a number of internationally recognized neuroscience groups, with expertise in a wide range of experimental and computational methods
FeatureDevelopment and Reproduction
The research interests of this theme are diverse, but its overall mission is to dissect the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying a range of developmental and reproductive processes with a strong emphasis on model organism studies in vivo
FeatureCardiac Science
DPAG has particular strengths in cardiac science, and members of this theme are recognized internationally for their pioneering approaches to systems biology and to computational modelling of the heart
FeatureMetabolism and Endocrinology
Defects in metabolic and endocrine control underlie many of the most common human diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. Groups in DPAG are using the full range of modern molecular genetic and imaging techniques to study a range of metabolic areas, including hypoxia, oxygen sensing, proton sensing and regulation, insulin secretion and signalling and steroid signalling.
FeatureDisease-related Research
DPAG’s research portfolio has several unique features. It has internationally reputed strengths in a very broad range of disciplines, covering at least five of the Medical Sciences Division’s seven research themes, and extending from the molecular, genetic and cellular to complex systems-level biology. Four of the Research Groupings within the Department, ‘Development and Reproduction’, ‘Ion Channels, Transporters and Signalling’, ‘Functional Genomics’ and ‘Metabolism and Endocrinology’, are major cross-cutting themes. Importantly, although DPAG’s primary emphasis is on basic science, there are many links with clinical groups in areas such as diabetes, neurodegeneration, cancer and heart disease.