Professor Simon Wilkinson (CRUK Senior Fellow)

Chair of Autophagy and Tissue Homeostasis

Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre
Institute of Genetics & Cancer

Tel: +44 (0)131 651 8592
Email: s.wilkinson@ed.ac.uk

Street: Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre
MRC Institute of Genetics & Cancer
The University of Edinburgh
Western General Hospital
Crewe Road South
City: Edinburgh
Post code: EH4 2XR

Biography

Background

Simon Wilkinson studied at University of Edinburgh from 1996, gaining a 1st class degree in Biochemistry. In late 2000, he moved to the Institute of Cancer Research in London, to study for his doctorate in the Cancer Research UK Tumour Cell Signalling Unit, under the supervision of Prof. Chris Marshall. His work here investigated the different signalling requirements of diverse tumour cell types for motility and invasion. In the course of this work he became very interested in the different mechanisms by which tumour cells engage protein kinase signalling pathways.

In 2005, Simon joined the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research as a postdoctoral scientist. Here, working with Prof. Kevin Ryan, he became interested in autophagy in cancer and worked on the identification of an ‘autophagy kinome’ - a set of protein kinases that engaged various different forms of autophagy. In 2010, Simon moved back to Edinburgh to work with Prof. Margaret Frame looking at the interplay between autophagy and cell signalling, focussing on Src kinase. In 2012, he was awarded a prestigious Career Development Fellowship from Cancer Research UK in order to establish his own laboratory in Edinburgh. After the award of a Cancer Research UK Senior Fellowship in 2020, his lab now studies the interplay between intracellular membrane dynamics - particularly membrane modification by ubiquitin-like proteins and the autophagy pathway - and cell signalling during cancer development and treatment, focussing on processes such as control of gene expression, cellular identity, inflammation and anti-tumoural immunity. Simon was appointed the Chair of Autophagy and Tissue Homeostasis in the autumn of 2023.

Teaching & PhD supervision

Undergraduate teaching

Course Organiser: Year 4 BSc(Hons) BIME10030 - Cancer Biology and Medicine

Postgraduate teaching

MSc Biomedical Science: Cancer Biology

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

Jocelyn Bisson

Tian En Lim

Carla Salomo Coll

Esranur Kizilhan

Dhananjay Kulkarni

David Lonergan

Ana Juan De Albuquerque

Past PhD students supervised

Mihaela Bozic

Alice Newman

Fraser Millar

Nurun Fancy

Roland Aldridge

Asimina Pantazi

Projects

Current project grants

CRUK Senior Fellowship (award C20685/A29576), "ER-phagy networks in cancer", Jul 2020-2026, £2.1M

Past project grants

CRUK Career Development Fellowship (award C20685/A12825), " TBK1 kinase addiction in KRAS-dependent non-small cell lung cancer: the role of autophagy", Feb 2012-Dec 2018, £1,152,735
BBSRC project grant (“Bb/N000315/1”), "A new negative regulator of autophagy in cellular and organismal homeostasis", Jan 2016-Dec 2018, £488,176

Publications

Hypoxia-selective macroautophagy and cell survival signaled by autocrine PDGFR activity (6 pages) 2009 In: Genes and Development, vol. 23, pp. 1283-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/gad.521709
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Autophagic targeting of Src promotes cancer cell survival following reduced FAK signalling (10 pages) Jan 2012 In: Nature Cell Biology, vol. 14, pp. 51-60
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb2386
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
TBK1 Kinase Addiction in Lung Cancer Cells Is Mediated via Autophagy of Tax1bp1/Ndp52 and Non-Canonical NF-kappa B Signalling (12 pages) 29 Nov 2012 In: PLoS ONE, vol. 7, pp. e50672
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050672
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
DRAM, a p53-induced modulator of autophagy, is critical for apoptosis (14 pages) 2006 In: Cell, vol. 126, pp. 121-34
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2006.05.034
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Cdc42-MRCK and Rho-ROCK signalling cooperate in myosin phosphorylation and cell invasion (7 pages) 2005 In: Nature Cell Biology, vol. 7, pp. 255-61
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1230
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Bromodomain protein BRD4 is a transcriptional repressor of autophagy and lysosomal function (25 pages) 18 May 2017 In: Molecular Cell, vol. 66, pp. 517-532.e9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2017.04.027
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
Autophagy acts through TRAF3 and RELB to regulate gene expression via antagonism of SMAD proteins 16 Nov 2017 In: Nature Communications, vol. 8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00859-z
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)
CCPG1 Is a Non-canonical Autophagy Cargo Receptor Essential for ER-Phagy and Pancreatic ER Proteostasis 22 Jan 2018 In: Developmental Cell, vol. 44, pp. P217-232.e11
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2017.11.024
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)

View all 34 publications on Research Explorer

This article was published on 28 Sep, 2023