Professor Martin Humphries

Martin Humphries is Professor of Biochemistry and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester. His major research interests centre on a molecular dissection of cell-matrix interactions, in particular structure-function studies on adhesion molecules and integrin receptors with relevance for treatment of many common diseases.

Specific foci have been the identification of sites within fibronectin and immunoglobulins that determine integrin recognition, the use of synthetic peptides and their derivatives as probes of biological and biomedical function, the development of these agents as anti-inflammatory therapeutics, and defining integrins as conformationally mobile, allosterically regulated receptors. Current interests include determination of integrin structure and understanding how integrins act as sensors of the cell microenvironment.

Professor Humphries was awarded a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester in 1983. From 1983-1988, he carried out postdoctoral research in the laboratories of Dr Ken Olden at the Howard University Cancer Center, Washington, DC, USA and Dr Ken Yamada at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA, where he became interested in the receptor-ligand interactions mediating cell adhesion.

In 1988, he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship to return to Manchester. In 1995, he progressed to a Principal Research Fellowship and was a co-founder of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, which he now directs. Professor Humphries was a founder member of the International Society for Matrix Biology and in 1998 was elected to the ISMB Council.

Contact
Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research
School of Biological Sciences
University of Manchester
2.205 Stopford Building
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PT, UK
Tel (direct): +44 (0)161 275 5071
Tel (secretary): +44 (0)161 275 7513
Fax: +44 (0)161 275 1505
E-mail: martin.Humphries@man.ac.uk
Web: www.sbs.man.ac.uk/staff/user.asp?id=406

Biographical information correct as at 20 August 2002.

top