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Professor Owen Sansom
Dianna Bowles Lecture Theatre, B/K/018, Biology Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)
Event details
Abstract
TBC
About the speaker
Professor Owen Sansom
Owen was a postdoctoral fellow at Cardiff University investigating the role of the APC gene in Wnt signalling and cancer. In 2005, he became a Junior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, and in 2011 he was appointed the Institute's Deputy Director. In 2016, the Institute's Director, Professor Karen Vousden moved to the Francis Crick Institute and became CRUK's chief scientist, and Owen acted as interim Director of the Beatson Institute until being appointed as the next Director in 2017. He also leads the CRUK Glasgow Centre, which aims to bring together scientists and clinicians to work together on cancer research, drug discovery and patient care.
Owen was the first person to acutely delete the APC gene in the murine intestine, a model that he then used to elucidate the key pathways that APC controls in vivo. Using this model system, Owen's group identified critical functional roles for genes such as MYC, RAC and MTOR. Additionally, the use of this and other models has allowed Owen's group to identify potential chemoprevention strategies. For example, the group's work on aspirin showed that embryonic and perinatal exposure to aspirin suppresses neoplasia associated with the loss of APC function. Owen and his group have made discoveries in many areas including, but not limited to, the role of neutrophils in colorectal and other cancers, the cell of origin of colorectal cancer, key regulators of metastasis.
Venue details
Wheelchair accessible
Hearing loop