Biological Sciences

Profile

As an undergraduate, Colin studied Biochemistry at the University of Oxford where he stayed to complete his DPhil in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. His thesis concerned the characterisation of the apolipoprotein genes that contribute to heart disease.

As a postdoc in Prof. Gurdon s laboratory at the University of Cambridge, Colin used molecular biology to examine the formation of the nervous system in the frog, Xenopus, a model system for vertebrate development. During his time at Cambridge he also worked with Profs Chris Wylie and Janet Heasman at the Wellcome CRC Institute of Developmental Biology. In 1995, Colin became a Senior Fellow of the Medical Research Council based in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge where he investigated the molecular mechanism by which retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A, acts as a signalling molecule.

In 2000 Colin was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. His current research concerns the regulation of retinoic acid signalling through the corepressors, SMRT and NCoR. In collaboration with Dr Alan Thorne (University of Portsmouth) he is examining the role of chromatin structure in this process and with Prof. Geoff Kneale s laboratory (University of Portsmouth) he is using biochemical and molecular techniques to unravel the contribution of protein isoforms to retinoic acid signalling.

Teaching Interests

Colin is a Higher Education Academy Fellow and contributes to courses in developmental biology, the analysis of the genome and basic biochemistry.

Recent Publications

More recent publications

Research Interests and Selected Papers

can be found on the Sharpe Lab web pages.