Dr Stewart Sage

My work focuses on intracellular calcium signalling mechanisms and the roles of calcium signals in platelet function. Much of my work has concerned the mechanisms which generate calcium entry and in particular on the mechanisms which couple the depletion of the intracellular calcium stores to the activation of calcium entry. This work employs fluorescent indicators and protein chemistry. Most recently, working with Dr Alan Harper (a former Research Fellow in my lab and now at the Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, Keele University), I have been studying platelet calcium signalling at a systems level by investigating agonist-evoked changes in the concentration of calcium and ions which influence calcium movements, in various cellular and pericellular compartments. This work has revealed a calcium recycling system in platelets that appears to involve nanojunctions between the dense tubular system and open canalicular system at the platelet membrane complex.

Dr Alan Harper (Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, Keele University)
Dr Gavin Jarvis (PDN)
Dr Mike Mason (PDN)
Prof Richard Farndale (Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge)
Dr Nick Pugh (Department of Life Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge)
Dr Juan Rosado and colleagues (Department of Physiology, University of Extremadura, Spain)