Home| Senior Lecturer |
Contact details:
| Tel: | +44 20 7882 2296 |
| Fax: | +44 20 7882 2180 |
| Email: | l.g.robson@qmul.ac.uk |
| Address: | Centre for Neuroscience and Trauma, |
Biography
PhD 1990 University of St Andrews in muscle physiology. Postdoctoral experience at University College London in the Anatomy and Developmental Biology Department and King's College London MRC Muscle and Cell motility Unit. In 1996 joined the Anatomy Department here at QMUL as a lecture and became a senior lecturer in 2005.
Research Activity
My main interest is in investigating muscle development. We are interested in how the different muscle fibre types are specified development. We have identified that the wnt gene family is able to control both the number of myogenic precursors and type of muscle fibre that differentiates. The lab is also investigating the normal ageing and disease response of the adult muscle's satellite cells which are the myogenic stem cells. With muscle damage the satellite cells become active to repair the muscle, with age and some diseases such as the muscular dystrophies the satellite cells repair function is impaired and the muscle becomes wasted/atrophied. We are looking at potential ways of enhancing the satellite cells function in ageing and disease.
In addition we are interested in the repair of the peripheral nervous system after injury or disease. In collaboration with Dr Peter Shortland also within the Neuroscience Centre we are investigating several potential new therapies in encouraging nerve repair or reducing neuropathic pain associated with peripheral nerve injury.
Key Publications
• Robson L. G . (1993) Cellular patterning of fast and slow fibres in the intermandibularis muscle of chick embryos. Development. 117: 329-339
• Robson L. G . Kara T. Crawley A. Tickle C. (1994) Tissue and cellular patterning of the musculature in chick wings. Development. 120:1265-1276
• Robson L.G. and Hughes S.M. (1996) The distal limb environment regulates MyoD accumulation and muscle differentiation in mouse-chick chimaeric limbs. Development. 122: 3899-3910
• Duprez, D., Lapointe, F., Edom-Vovard, F., Kostakopoulou, K ., and Robson, L . (1999) Sonic hedgehog (SHH) specifies muscle pattern at tissue and cellular level, in the chick limb bud. Mechanisms of Development 82: 151-163
• Robson L.G. and Hughes S.M. (1999) Local signals in the chick limb bud can override myoblast lineage commitment: induction of slow myosin heavy chain in fast myoblasts. Mechanisms of Development 85: 59-71
• A nakwe K, Robson L,* Hadley J, Buxton P, Church V, Allen S, Hartmann C, Harfe Nohno T, Brown AM, Evans DJ, Francis-West P. (2003) Wnt signalling regulates myogenic differentiation in the developing avian wing. Development. 130:3503-3514.
• Averill S., Robson L. G., Jeromin A. and Priestley J. V. (2004) Neuronal calcium sensor-1 is expressed by dorsal root ganglion cells, is axonally transported to central and peripheral terminals and is concentrated at nodes. Neuroscience. 123: 419-427
• Peter J. Shortland, Veronica H.L. Leinster, William White, Lesley G. Robson Novel effects of riluzole on cell survival and neurite outgrowth in sensory neurons. E. J. Neuro 2006 Dec;24(12):3343-53.
• Akbar Dastjerdi, Lesley Robson , Rebecca Walker, Julia Hadley , Zhen Zhang, Marc Rodriguez-Niedenführ, Paris Ataliotis, Antonio Baldini, Peter Scambler, Philippa Francis-West. Tbx1 regulation of myogenic differentiation in the limb and cranial mesoderm Developmental Dynamics 2007 Feb;236(2):353-63
