Professor Laura Machesky

The Unit's Affiliated Memberships aim to facilitate or enhance long-term collaborations between scientists and experts from across the world with the MRC Toxicology Unit and its groups. Affiliated Members are linked to a group and provide the Affiliates with access to the Unit, its expertise and wider opportunities, making them highly valued members of the Unit's research community.

Professor Laura Machesky is currently the Sir William Dunn Professor of Biochemistry, having recently moved to Cambridge from Glasgow. She is currently president of the British Society for Cell Biology, a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

PhD – Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA 1993 

Postdoctoral work London with Alan Hall MRC-LMB London from 1995-1997 

MRC Career Development and Senior Fellowships 1998-2007 (London and Birmingham School of Biosciences) 

CRUK Beatson Institute 2007-2022 

Cambridge Biochemistry Department 2022-present 

Laura's group uses molecular cell biology, in vivo models and advanced imaging to understand how stresses and signalling in the tumour and the microenvironment drive metastasis and reawakening of disseminated cancer cells. They study actin dynamics, adhesion and membrane trafficking and how these fundamental cell processes guide migration, cancer invasion and metastasis. Her group is interested in how cells sense physical parameters of their environment and adapt their signaling and metabolic flux in response to environmental stimuli. She collaborates with bioengineers and physicists to develop reproducible and tuneable tools for modelling normal and cancerous cell and tissue function.