School of Biomedical Sciences


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02 6933 2958

Dr Michael Cahill Debbie Burton

BSc (Hons), UNSW, PhD UNSW.

Position Lecturer in Biochemistry
Campus Boorooma Campus
Office Room 110 Building 3
Phone (02) 69 332729
Fax (02) 69 332587
EMAIL MIKE CAHILL

Research & Teaching Interests

Background

I completed a BSc (hons I) in Zoology and Biochemistry from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of NSW, Sydney, and subsequently obtained my PhD in Molecular Cell Biology (on proto-oncogene c-fos gene regulation and signal transduction) as an external student of the Department of Pathology, School of Medicine of the University of NSW. The laboratory work for my doctoral degree was performed in the group of Prof. Alfred Nordheim, who was then at the Institute of Molecular Biology at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, in Germany. After doing my PhD and follow-up postdoc work in Hannover I spent one year as a postdoctoral Scientist working on Fos-family gene regulation at The John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University in Canberra, where I was introduced through a guest lecture by Professor Keith Williams to the then emerging field of Proteomics. Working in the field of signal transduction, I was then trying to identify kinases that anonymously phosphorylated my target proteins, only to frustratingly vanish unidentified back into the cloaking shadows of the unchartered cytoplasm from whence they had appeared. This field of proteomics offered new strategies to tackle the biology cell signalling, and indeed the broad panorama of cell biology.

These were exciting developments, and I decided immediately that I wanted to work in proteomics because it showed the potential to eventually address just the questions that I was trying to ask in my own research. At that stage (in 1996) the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility (APAF) had just been established, and I assessed that there was no chance of my securing funds in Australia to work on proteomics, and so I moved back to Germany. My Ex-PhD supervisor, Alfred Nordheim, had just accepted a Professorship at the Department of Molecular Biology, Interfaculty Institute of Cell Biology at the University of Tuebingen, and he offered me the opportunity to initiate proteomics activities in his brand new and empty institute. Those activities were the direct genetic ancestor of the modern Proteomics Centre at Tuebingen, which was founded in 2000.

However before that centre was officially opened I had left academia. Realising that proteomics techniques detected only a fraction of all cellular proteins, I was working on strategies to improve protein detection: involving a vision of large two-dimensional protein separation gels combined with sensitive multiplexed radioactive protein detection. This led to my co-foundation of a proteomics-based biotechnology company in February 2000. One year later that company underwent a corporate merger to form ProteoSys AG, based in Mainz Germany, where I initially served on the managerial board and as Chief Research Officer and co-founding scientist until I left in 2007. There, with the support of a talented team of colleagues, we were able to develop the technological proteomics platform envisioned in the business plan and to experimentally focus those newly acquired tools onto several cancer systems. These methods in turn revealed exciting cell biology, which closed the circle on my professional interests of oncogenic signal transduction. In 2008 I ‘moved back home’ by re-entering academic life in Australia as a biochemistry lecturer at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, where the climate and lanscape is similar to Wellington NSW, where I grew up.

Current Research Focus

At ProteoSys AG I headed cancer research. After that indication area was discontinued due to insufficient funds I could choose any result in the then current cancer portfolio to pursue in an academic career. By far the most promising protein in the cancer portfolio of ProteoSys, the veritable jewel in the crown, was the protein Progesterone Receptor Membrane Component 1 (PGRMC1), which we had detected to be differentially phosphorylated between breast cancers differing in expression levels of the estrogen receptor. Whereas these results had been submitted for patent applications between 2004-2007 (WO2006029836; WO2007039189; WO2008037449), a chronic internal funding shortage for the project within the company had prevented the level of biological characterisation that will be necessary to elucidate the precise role of PGRMC1 in cancer. That elucidation represents my current research priority. Although it is a small protein, PGRMC1 has been implicated in a wide variety of biological functions (See Cahill 2007). In fact it is highly likely that PGRMC1 is involved at a crucial nexus position in a convergent inter-regulated yet hitherto undescribed signalling system (which includes the regulation of steroid synthesis) whose activity determines the survival prognosis of cancer cells (Neubauer et al., Breast Cancer Research, in press). PGRMC1 also regulates the steroid-mediated onset of vasculogenesis that is so crucially important in metastatic biology (Neubauer et al., Climacteric, in press).

Students interested in pursuing Honours or Doctoral studies in a stimulating scientific environment working on the mechanistic molecular cell biology of cancer or pharmacology are encouraged to contact me. The committment to either undergraduate or postgraduate study is a vitally important step that hones the future career path of any student. The PGRMC1 signalling project offers a scientific environment and a compellingly urgent research topic that will enable students who are willing to apply themselves to reach their scientific potential at this crucial stage of their careers. The School of Biomedical Sciences is also a great place to work, and we have a lot of fun here too!

 

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