Professor Pat Eyers BSc/PhD

Personal Statement

Pat is the Johnston Chair of Biochemistry, Professor of Cell Signalling and Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Systems Biology, Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology. He obtained an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Bristol, and completed his PhD with Sir Philip Cohen at the University of Dundee in 2000. After 4 years of postdoctoral research in the USA with the late Jim Maller, he set up his laboratory in the UK with an MRC Career Development Fellowship in 2005. His interests include all aspects of protein phosphorylation and sulfation, redox-based analysis of protein kinase and sulfotransferase regulation, pseudokinases and pseudoenzymes and kinome-wide mechanisms of acquired drug resistance in cells. He also teaches cell signalling, running modules explaining the biochemical mechanisms underpinning cell communication. In 2022, he spun-out the biotech company Sulantrix (www.sulantrix.com) from the University of Liverpool, with a goal of developing a new generation of anti-cancer agents targeting pseudoenzymes such as pseudokinases.

A 20 year timeline of research highlights:

1) Examining the temporal redox regulation of protein kinases and pseudokinases (2020-)
2) Targeting pseudokinases with clinically-approved drugs in cancer cells (2018-)
3) Analysis of sulfotransferases: sulfoproteomics and regulation of sulfation by small molecules (2017-)
4) Kinome-wide responses to drugs in human breast, lung and uveal cancer models (2017-)
5) Drug-resistant Aurora, Polo-like and Mps1 kinases for inhibitor and PROTAC target-validation (2010/11/17)

6) Conserved rate-limiting roles for PKA, PLK4 and TPX2 in the cell cycle (2005/2008/2017/2018)
7) Purification and characterisation of TPX2, a physiological activator of Aurora A (2003)
8) Cellular ‘target-validation’ of p38 MAPK inhibitors using chemical genetics (2000)
9) First description of paradoxical activation of RAF kinases by chemical RAF inhibitors (1999)
10) Co-discovery of the 'gatekeeper' residue in Ser/Thr kinases (1998)

Prizes or Honours

• Pseudoenzymes 2016: from signalling mechanisms to disease (Biochemical Society Focussed Meeting, 2016)
• Liverpool Enzyme Assay and Screening Facility (Department of Biochemistry, University of Liverpool, 2015)

Funded Fellowships

Other Personal Distinctions

• BBSRC Pool of Experts Panel D (BBSRC, 2017)