Dr Hugh Robinson

My lab carries out research in the emerging field of cancer neuroscience: how cancer cells use neural mechanisms, how they interact with the nervous system, and how cancer arises in, or metastasizes to the brain. We focus on how ion channels control membrane potential and intracellular calcium signalling in cancer cells. Cancers such as pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours, small-cell lung cancer and some breast and prostate cancers show neural or neuroendocrine characteristics, including excitability and vesicular release of peptides and neurotransmitters. We want to understand how such signalling participates in the invasiveness and progression of these cancers. As well as these neuroendocrine-differentiated cancers, we are interested in how brain-metastatic cancer cells interact with neurons, and how neurotransmitter signalling at synapses promotes survival, invasion and growth of brain metastases, for example of breast cancer. We use a combination of patch-clamp and optical recording techniques, cell culture and computational modelling.

Leanne Li (Crick Institute)
Douglas Hanahan (EPFL, Lausanne)
Hugo Zeberg (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm)
Ole Paulsen (PDN)
Bill Colledge (PDN)