Dr Andrew Lindsay is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and obtained a PhD from University College Cork. He has previously worked in the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics in the Indiana University School of Medicine and at the Institut Curie, Paris. He is currently a senior lecturer in the School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, UCC. His group studies the endosomal recycling pathway, and the role that its dysregulation plays in the aggressiveness of certain cancers. This pathway is the main cellular mechanism for controlling the composition of the plasma membrane. Research from his lab has shown that inhibiting endosomal recycling reduces the metastatic potential of cancer cells, and can also enhance the effectiveness of a number of targeted therapies. Dr Lindsay has received a number of grants including a HRB Career Development Award, a Research Ireland/Breakthrough Cancer Research Frontiers for the Future Project grant and a prestigious Marie Curie Research Fellowship. The main focus of his laboratory is to characterize the role that dysregulated membrane trafficking pathways play in the development and aggressiveness of cancer and to identify small-molecule inhibitors of the endosomal recycling pathway that may be useful as novel anti-cancer therapies.

My research is focused primarily on the study of intracellular membrane trafficking, in particular the endosomal recycling pathway. This pathway is the main cellular mechanism for controlling the composition of the plasma membrane. Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), integrins, G-protein coupled receptors, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), and cadherins are examples of cell surface proteins that undergo endocytic recycling. Defects in this pathway have been linked to a number of diseases including neurological disorders such as Huntington’s disease and Griscelli’s Syndrome Type I, and intestinal disorders such as microvillus inclusion disease. Furthermore, a number of intracellular pathogens such as HIV and Chlamydia trachomatis ‘hijack’ the endosomal recycling pathway during their life cycle. In recent years it has emerged that aberrant expression of key regulators of endosomal recycling can lead to the increased aggressiveness of a wide range of cancers. One such regulator is a protein that I identified during my PhD called Rab Coupling Protein (RCP). The RCP gene is frequently amplified in breast cancer and has been found to be a breast cancer promoting gene. Downregulation of RCP inhibits the motility and invasiveness (key properties of metastatic tumour cells) of lung and breast cancer cells. The main goals of my research are to gain a greater understanding of the role that a malfunctioning endosomal recycling pathway plays in cancer metastasis, with a view to identifying novel therapeutic targets. Greater than 90% of all deaths caused by solid cancers result from metastasis, i.e. the formation of secondary tumours in distant organs such as the lungs, liver, brain and bone. Given the importance of the endosomal recycling pathway in mediating the aggressiveness of cancers (likely due to biased recycling of adhesion molecules, MMPs, integrins, and RTKs), a major focus is to identify inhibitors of endosomal recycling that

I am the Director of the BSc Genetics degree programme in University College Cork. I also deliver Genetics and Biotechnology lectures to various undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. I have developed and coordinate a number of academic modules and employ a ‘student-centred’ teaching approach. BT4002 Biotechnology Research Project (Joint module coordinator) GN1001 Principles and Methods in Genetics (Joint module coordinator) BC6015 Cell and Gene Therapy (Module Coordinator) BT4004 Microbial biotechnology GN2001 Current Perspectives in Genetics GN4002 Genetics Research Project GN4003 Genomics and Applications GN4004 Genetics and SocietyML6004 Cell and Molecular Biology ML6001 Molecular Cell Biology Research Dissertation ML6003 Scientific Communication of Current Topics in Molecular Cell Biology BC3012 Literature review GN3002 Literature in GeneticsFM1010 Introductory Human Biology· BC3004 Cell Signalling. I am on the Biotechnology Board of Studies.