The optimal environment for researching chemokines: Professor Gerard Graham

Issued: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:32:00 BST

Since Professor Gerard Graham identified a novel regulator of stem cell proliferation that turned out to be one of the first chemokines ever pinpointed, he’s been firmly wedded to this particular molecule family. Twenty-four years later, his focus remains their basic mechanics, though he always has one eye on the potential applications of his research. Chemokines are, after all, at the heart of every immune-inflammatory disorder and are fundamental players in cancer.

‘These molecules are particularly involved in how cells navigate their way around the body, and the cells that are most frequently directed to different sites are leukocytes, so-called white blood cells,’ says Professor Graham. ‘Chemokines act like a navigational beacon. If a particular part of your body becomes infected, you’ll make chemokines there. These set up navigational positional queues and help white blood cells to move there to try and fight the infection.’

While there’s great interest in chemokines in general, the current research is focused on understanding how inflammation can be switched off. It’s well understood that these molecules orchestrate inflammation, by recruiting inflammatory cells and immune cells to damaged sites. What’s not clear is why some people – those with inflammatory diseases – don’t switch this off. If the mechanics can be ascertained, this knowledge could potentially be used therapeutically.

Prior to taking up his current role as Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator, Professor Graham was a group leader at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research for 16 years. During his time here, Professor Graham has gone to great lengths to create the optimal environment for his world-leading research. ‘It’s about having the right intellectual input, the right technical competence and the right knowledge base,’ he says. ‘The question of chemokines is so complex that addressing it requires a broad base of technological expertise. By definition we’re multidisciplinary, and we use a lot of cutting-edge genomics technologies. They’re important both in coming up with answers and in making what we do internationally competitive.’

Pastoral care of his 16-strong research group is equally important to Professor Graham. ‘The University itself is a friendly and nurturing environment. My own philosophy is that I have quite a big research group and I want people to feel that it is a second home. Science isn’t a nine-to-five job – it’s a passion. People spend a huge amount of time and effort working in science and they need to do that against a background of being happy and supported. Our technical experience and knowledge means we can train postgraduate students to get things up and running very quickly.’