Hugh Robinson

Hugh Robinson

Affiliated to Research
Visiting address: Solnavägen 9, Biomedicum C4, 17165 Solna
Postal address: C3 Fysiologi och farmakologi, C3 FyFa FK Genetisk och farmakologisk epidemiologi, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience,
    University of Cambridge, UK.

Research

  • .. *Cancer Neuroscience*
    My lab carries out research in the emerging field of cancer neuroscience:
    how cancer cells use neural mechanisms, how they interact with the nervous
    system, and how cancer arises in, or metastasizes to the brain. We focus on
    how ion channels control membrane potential and intracellular calcium
    signalling in cancer cells. Cancers such as pancreatic neuroendocrine
    tumours, small-cell lung cancer and some breast and prostate cancers show
    neural or neuroendocrine characteristics, including excitability and
    vesicular release of peptides and neurotransmitters. We want to understand
    how such signalling participates in the invasiveness and progression of these
    cancers. As well as these neuroendocrine-differentiated cancers, we are
    interested in how brain-metastatic cancer cells interact with neurons, and
    how neurotransmitter signalling at synapses promotes survival, invasion and
    growth of brain metastases, for example of breast cancer. We use a
    combination of patch-clamp and optical recording techniques, cell culture and
    computational modelling.
    *Selected Recent Publications*
    Zeberg H, Dannemann M, Sahlholm K, Tsuo K, Maricic T, Wiebe V, Hevers W,
    Robinson HPC, Kelso J, and Pääbo S (2020). A Neanderthal sodium channel
    increases pain sensitivity in present-day humans. C*urrent Biology
    *30:3465–3469 (See also: “Neanderthal gene linked to pain sensitivity”
    News, Nature 583:665).
    Zeng Q, Michael IP, Zhang P, Saghafinia S, Knott G, Jiao W, McCabe BD,
    Galván, JA, Robinson HPC, Zlobec I, Ciriello G, Hanahan D (2019) /Synaptic
    proximity enables NMDAR signalling to promote brain
    metastasis/. *Nature *573:526–531. (See also /News and Views: /Barria A
    (2019) Dangerous liaisons as tumour cells form synapses with
    neurons. /Nature /573:499–501).
    Li, L., Zeng, Q., Bhutkar, A., Galván, J.A., Karamitopoulou, E.,
    Noordermeer, D., Peng, M.-W., Piersigilli, A., Perren, A., Zlobec, I.,
    Robinson, H., Iruela-Arispe M.L. and Hanahan, D. (2018)./ GKAP acts as a
    genetic modulator of NMDAR signaling to govern invasive tumor
    growt/h. *Cancer Cell *33, 1–16.
    Mendonça, P.R.F., Kyle, V., Yeo, S.-H., Colledge, W.H., and Robinson, H.P.C.
    (2018). /Kv4.2 channel activity controls intrinsic firing dynamics of
    arcuate kisspeptin neurons: Kv4.2 potassium channels and firing irregularity
    in kisspeptin neurons/. *J. Physiol. *596, 885–899.
    Robinson, H.P.C., and Li, L. (2017). /Autocrine, paracrine and necrotic NMDA
    receptor signalling in mouse pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour cells/. *Open
    Biol.* 7, 170221.
    Scheppach, C., and Robinson, H.P.C. (2017). /Fluctuation analysis in
    nonstationary conditions: single Ca/2+/ channel current in pyramidal
    neurons./ *Biophys. J.* 113, 2383–2395.
    Butler, J.L., Mendonca, P.R.F., Robinson, H.P.C., and Paulsen, O.
    (2016)./ Intrinsic Cornu Ammonis Area 1 theta-nested gamma oscillations
    induced by optogenetic theta frequency stimulation./ *J. Neurosci. *36,
    4155–4169.
    Mendonça, P.R., Vargas-Caballero, M., Erdélyi, F., Szabó, G., Paulsen, O.,
    and Robinson, H.P. (2016). /Stochastic and deterministic dynamics of
    intrinsically irregular firing in cortical inhibitory
    interneurons./ *Elife* 5, e16475.

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