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Click here for a general introduction to our work. Suitable for the general public.
Click here for more detailed information on our research interests. Suitable for scientists, clinicians and students.
Funded by:
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Welcome to the website of the Cell Migration lab at the University of Reading.
We are interested in how cells move and how this movement, or migration, is controlled. Cell migration is an essential part of many normal biological processes and also many diseases. For example, during an infection cells of the immune system move towards the site of infection and during wound healing cells need to move to the site of injury in order to repair the damage. Cell migration is also important in the spread of cancer and a better understanding of this process is essential for improving the treatment of a wide range of diseases.
This website aims to provide some information about the work that we do including an introduction to the concepts and principles underlying our research, a more detailed description of the ongoing projects in the lab as well as information on the people in the lab, our publications and collaborations.
We are particularly interested in how nitric oxide (or NO for short) acts to regulate cell migration. NO is an extremely important signalling molecule that acts in many tissues to regulate a diverse range of physiological and cellular processes. In the last 10 years there have been over 60,000 papers published on various aspects of nitric oxide and the discovery of its role in the cardiovascular system won the Nobel prize in 1998. Nitric oxide has now been demonstrated to play a role in a variety of biological processes including cell migration.
Since it is a gas NO is able to diffuse rapidly across cell membranes and, depending on the conditions, is able to diffuse distances of more than several hundred microns. Due to the importance of NO, abnormal regulation or control of NO synthesis is capable of affecting a number of important biological processes and has been implicated in a variety of diseases.