Belshaw, Robert - Plymouth University - School of Biomedical and Healthcare Sciences

个人简介

Qualifications Ph.D. (Biology) Imperial College London M.Sc.(Bioarchaeology) University College London B.Sc.(I) and M.Sc. (Zoology) University of Manchester Professional membership Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

研究领域

The proteins that make up our body are coded for by less than 2% of our genome sequence. Around half of the remaining 98% is made up of the remains of genomic parasites: pieces of DNA that copy themselves to new locations, often causing damage as they do so. Some of these genomic parasites are called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). My research prior to moving to Plymouth had centred on finding out what controls the spread and proliferation of ERVs in host genomes, and also trying to discover if they were replicating in the human population today. Here at Plymouth I am concentrating on the possible roles of ERVs in human disease and therapy. For example, they appear to be contributing to Merlin-deficient tumour proliferation and might offer a good drug target here. They might even turn out to be useful: although generally silenced in our cells, this control breaks down in many cancers leading to viral proteins being produced on the surface of cells. If we could use these proteins as a target for cell killing by manufactured antibodies or engineered patient T-cells, it would open up a promising new line of therapy. We are also examining the extent to which ERVs are interacting with the innate immune system, with implications for autoimmune/inflammatory disease and vaccine design.

近期论文

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Long J, Pan G, Ifeachor E, Belshaw R & Li X 2016 'Discovery of Novel Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease from Blood' DISEASE MARKERS Author Site , DOI PEARL Li X, Long J, He T, Belshaw R & Scott J 2015 'Integrated genomic approaches identify major pathways and upstream regulators in late onset Alzheimer's disease' SCIENTIFIC REPORTS 5, Author Site , DOI PEARL Magiorkinis G, Blanco-Melo D & Belshaw R 2015 'The decline of human endogenous retroviruses: extinction and survival' Retrovirology 12, Author Site , DOI Katzourakis A, Magiorkinis G, Lim AG, Gupta S, Belshaw R & Gifford R 2014 'Larger mammalian body size leads to lower retroviral activity' PLoS Pathog 10, (7) Author Site , DOI Marchi E, Kanapin A, Magiorkinis G & Belshaw R 2014 'Unfixed endogenous retroviral insertions in the human population' J Virol 88, (17) 9529-9537 Author Site , DOI Paraskevis D, Magiorkinis G, Magiorkinis E, Ho SYW, Belshaw R, Allain J-P & Hatzakis A 2013 'Dating the origin and dispersal of hepatitis B virus infection in humans and primates' Hepatology 57, (3) 908-916 Author Site , DOI Magiorkinis G, Sypsa V, Magiorkinis E, Paraskevis D, Katsoulidou A, Belshaw R, Fraser C, Pybus OG & Hatzakis A 2013 'Integrating phylodynamics and epidemiology to estimate transmission diversity in viral epidemics' PLoS Comput Biol 9, (1) Author Site , DOI Marchi E, Kanapin A, Byott M, Magiorkinis G & Belshaw R 2013 'Neanderthal and Denisovan retroviruses in modern humans' Curr Biol 23, (22) R994-R995 Author Site , DOI Magiorkinis G, Belshaw R & Katzourakis A 2013 ''There and back again': revisiting the pathophysiological roles of human endogenous retroviruses in the post-genomic era' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 368, (1626) Author Site , DOI Karlin D & Belshaw R 2012 'Detecting remote sequence homology in disordered proteins: discovery of conserved motifs in the N-termini of Mononegavirales phosphoproteins' PLoS One 7, (3) Author Site , DOI