Movement is a fundamental behaviour of cells and its regulation is particularly relevant to cancer because tumour invasion and metastasis are principal causes of death in cancer patients. Our group aims to understand how cell movement is regulated, using a mixture of genetics and microscopy. We are interested in several aspects of cell movement.

One is chemotaxis, in which external signals orient and attract cells, which is increasingly seen as a fundamental cause of metastasis. Metastasis, one of the most feared features of cancer, is caused when cells migrate out from a tumour into the blood, lymph or other tissues. Chemotaxis is clearly important in these processes but exactly how and why remain poorly understood.