About
Following a BSc in Cell Biology and a MSc in Immunology at London University I moved to Liverpool to complete my postdoctoral studies. My PhD examined the biology of hairy cell leukaemia and focused on the factors involved in tissue residency and determining a permissive microenvironmental for the cells to grow and survive. My post-doctoral work initially focused on another B-cell malignancy chronic lymphoctic leukaemia (CLL). Since lymphadenophathy was (and is) a feature of advanced stage disease, my work examined the factors involved in the entry of the CLL cells into microenvironment of the lymph nodes. I was the first person to describe the importance of the integrin alpha4beta1 in determining whether or not the malignant cells could enter the lymph nodes; subsequent work has confirmed the importance of this integrin and it role as an independent marker on the CLL cells of patients who have a poor prognosis. Having described the factors important for tissue residency of CLL, I then moved on to look at the factors involved in the LN residency of other B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL). I now head up a growing team of researchers looking at two related aspects of B-NHL pathophysiology. The first line of research is examining the potential of kinase inhibitors to interfere with the tissue residence of B-NHL cells (in particular those of mantle-cell lymphoma). The second, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Morgan, is to examine the adhesome of alpha4beta1 in order to further elucidate the role of this integrin the pathology of CLL.