Professor Tony Whetton 

Many leukaemias occur as a result of inappropriate expression of cancer causing genes in hematopoietic stem cells. These stem cells reside in the bone marrow and are able to provide all the white and red blood cells we require throughout our lifetime. Tony Whetton’s group are investigating how stem cells achieve the spectacular feat of maintaining their own numbers during our lifetime whilst acting as the source of the billions of new mature blood cells we each produce every day. They also study how this process is adversely affected by leukaemogenic proteins.

To achieve this objective requires the most advanced technologies. The group has therefore invested much time in developing a new approach to examining leukaemias, proteomics. The human genome sequencing project opened up great opportunities for the study of the types, amount, modification and turnover of proteins in cells. They investigate key mechanistic differences between normal and leukaemic cells using proteomics. Other important cells (such as embryonal stem cells) that may have therapeutic value are also studied using these procedures. In particular the group have devised new methods to look at changes in protein status (phosphorylation, acetylation) that are key in the governance of protein actions within cells. Using the information derived Tony’s group have derived potentially new strategies for the treatment of haematological malignancies.

Tony Whetton obtained his first degree from the University of Manchester and a PhD from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). Since this training in biochemistry he has pursued research in haematology and stem cell biology. This was firstly at Christie Hospital, then UMIST, where he was Professor of Cell Biology, and since 2003 at the Christie Hospital, University of Manchester. He has been the Director of the Leukaemia Research Fund Cellular Development Unit since its inception in 1990 and the Co-Director of the Leukaemia Research Fund (LRF) Proteomics Facility since 1999. He leads a laboratory of about 20 people engaged in both stem cell research and the new exciting area of proteomics research.

The current objective of this work is to combine the incisive techniques of proteomics to understand biological processes in normal and leukaemic stem cells. He has been a consultant to many international pharmaceutical and proteomics companies and has extensive experience advising national and international science funding bodies. He has also served as external examiner to higher education institutes overseas as well as in the UK. He is currently developing, with colleagues overseas, a consortium for proteomic definition of stem cell populations.

For further information, see: LRF Proteomics Facility minisite