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Department of Pharmacology

Studying at Cambridge

 

Platelet death in thrombosis and thrombocytopenia

 

– Group Leader

Fellow in Pharmacology Jesus College


E-Mail:  Tel: +44 1223 334032/334024
Fax: +44 1223 334100

Keywords

Thrombosis, Thrombocytopenia, Platelets, Cellular signalling, Cell death, Calcium, Apoptosis, Necrosis, Phosphatidylserine exposure, 3Rs, Microparticles

 

Investigator Biography

Matthew read natural sciences at Cambridge and stayed to complete a PhD with Stewart Sage (Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience) on the regulation of calcium signalling in platelets. He moved to Alastair Poole’s group in Bristol to work on platelet granule secretion and thrombosis. Matthew is on the editorial board of the journals Platelets, Scientific Reports and Pharmacology Reviews and Perspectives, and is a founding trustee of The Platelet Society, a charity that promotes research and education about the roles of platelets in disease. In 2015 he was appointed to a lectureship in the Pharmacology Department. His current research focuses on understanding platelets in health and disease.
 
Matthew is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, where he supervises second year medics and vets taking the MoDA course. He is also the Admissions Tutor for Sciences. Queries related to undergraduate admissions should be directed at Cambridge Admissions Office or the . 

 

Lab members

Harper Lab summer 2018
- Mr Venkat Vadlamani

Key publications

Abbasian N, Millington-Burgess SL, Chabra S, Malcor JD, Harper MT (2020). Supramaximal calcium signaling triggers procoagulant platelet formation. Blood Adv, In Press

Millington-Burgess SL, Rahman T, Harper MT (2020). R5421 is not a selective inhibitor platelet scramblase activity. Br J Pharmacol (In Press)

Wei H, Harper MT (2019). ABT-737 triggers caspase-dependent inhibition of platelet procoagulant extracellular vesicle release during apoptosis and secondary necrosis in vitro. Thromb Haemost, In Press

Wei H, Malcor JM, Harper MT (2018). Lipid rafts are essential for release of phosphatidylserine-exposing extracellular vesicles from platelets. Sci Rep, 8, 9987.

Harper MT, Camacho Londono JE, Quick K, Camacho Londono J, Philipp SE, Birnbaumer L, Freichel M, Poole AW (2013). Transient receptor potential channels function as a coincidence signal detector mediated phosphatidylserine exposure. Science Signalling, 6, ra50.

Harper MT, Poole AW. Chloride channels are necessary for full platelet phosphatidylserine exposure and procoagulant activity. Cell Death Dis, 4, e969.

 

 

 

If you are interested in our research, please contact . Prospective PhD students should consult the University's Postgraduate Admissions site, and in particular the postgraduate funding section. Post-doctoral research opportunities will be advertised by the Department and on the University Jobs page. Regretfully, the Harper lab is unable to provide any undergraduate summer placements in 2021.

 

Former lab members

Dr Nima Abbasian (now Charles River)

Dr Bonita Apta (now Lead Scientist, Lonza Biologics)

Dr Jessica Davies (now Cambridge Graduate Medicine)

Ivelin Ivanov (now Lonza Biologics)

Dr Dora Lopresto (now Associate, Boston Consulting Group)

Alice Sowton (now Department of Physiology, Development & Neuroscience, University of Cambridge)

Dr Hao Wei (now Department of Immunology, Fudan University, Shanghai)

 

Undergraduate members

Grace Atkinson - Lottie Arnold - Jasmine Bawa - James Brice - Shirom Chabra - Lana Huang - Rebecca Gilchirst - Evonne Gaw - Celine Goh - Zhiyuan Lin - Wenxin Ma - Keiran Smith - Georgia Tooth

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