Professor A Graham Pockley BSc, PhD
Honorary Professor
Current Address:
Associate Director
John van Geest Cancer Research Centre
Nottingham Trent University
Clifton Campus
Nottingham
NG11 8NS
UK
Tel: +44 114 848 6342
email: graham.pockley@ntu.ac.uk
Biography
Having obtained a Doctor of Philosophy for studies investigating the immunomodulatory properties of human placental protein 14 from Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University) in 1988, I undertook a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship studying ocular mucosal immunoregulation in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Wayne State University, Detroit, USA. In January 1990 I returned to the UK to take up a Lectureship and direct the experimental transplantation programme in the Professorial Surgical Unit at the Medical College of St Bartholomew´s Hospital, London. I returned to Sheffield as a Lecturer in September 1994, and was promoted to Reader in Immunobiology in 1996. I became Professor of Immunobiology in 2004.
I became the Associate Director of the John van Geest Cancer Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University on 1 May 2012 and retain an Honorary Professorship in the Department of Oncology at The University of Sheffield.
- In the top 5% of highly cited authors in the field of Biology and Biochemistry (data from Thomson Reuters)
- July 2011 - January 2012: Faculty Knowledge Transfer (KT) Champion
- January 2011 - December 2012: President-Elect, Cell Stress Society International
- February 2007 - October 2007: Visiting (Gast) Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Technische Universitat Munchen, Munich, Germany
Research Interests
Historically, my research interests have focussed on endogenous immunoregulatory mechanisms relating to transplantation and cardiovascular disease, with a specific emphasis on the functional roles of heat shock (stress) proteins in health and disease. Of late, my principle are of interests relate to tumour-mediated immunoregulation and its influence on the induction of protective innate and adaptive anti-tumour immunity, the immunoregulatory properties of opioids, immunoregulatory mechanisms in cardiovascular disease, the relationship between inflammatory bowel disease and bone development in children and the influence of stress proteins on fertility.
Teaching Interests
My teaching interests relate to immunology and inflammatory mechanisms in a variety of disease states.
Professional Activities
- Organiser, Sixth International Congress on Stress Responses in Biology and Medicine (UK, August 2013)
- Academic Editor, PLoS ONE
- Section Editor, Cell Stress & Chaperones
- Editorial Board, Frontiers in Molecular and Cellular Oncology
- Editorial Board, Chinese Medical Journal
- Editorial Board, Immunological Investigations
- Numerous invited lectures to meetings in the UK and overseas (e.g. Woods Hole Marine Biology Institute, USA; Québec City, Canada; Miami Beach, USA; Wuhan and Yichang, China; Tomar and Lisbon, Portugal; Berlin, Germany; Budapest, Hungary; Concepción, Chile).
Current Projects
- Imaging human breast cancer cells and their interaction(s) with potential immunotherapeutics using confocal and multi-photon microscopy (funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) 824)
- Orchestration of innate and adaptive immune responses by breast cancer cell-derived factors (Funded by Breast Cancer Campaign)
- Investigation into the role of regulatory T cells, stress proteins and their interaction in pulmonary hypertension (funded by NIHR Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit)
- Influence of opioids on innate and adaptive immune responses
- Role for trafficking immune cells in inflammatory bowel disease-related osteoporosis in children? (funded by Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity)
- Multicolour Flow Cytometer (funded by the Wellcome Trust)
Key Publications
- Gehrmann M, Doss BT, Wagner M, Zettlitz KA, Kontermann RE, Eckardt-Schupp F, Foulds G, Pockley AG, Multhoff G. A novel expression and purification system for the production of enzymatic and biological active human granzyme B. Journal of Immunological Methods 2011, 371:8-17
- Stangl S, Gehrmann M, Riegger J, Kuhs K, Riederer I, Sievert W, Hube K, Mocikat R, Dressel R, Kremmer E, Pockley AG, Friedrich L, Vigh L, Skerra A, Multhoff G. Targeting membrane heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) on tumors by cmHsp70.1 antibody. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 2011, 108:733-738
- Saxton JM, Zwierska I, Blagojevic M, Choksy SA, Nawaz S, Pockley AG. Upper- versus lower-limb aerobic exercise training on health-related quality of life in patients with symptomatic peripheral arterial disease. Journal of Vascular Surgery 2011, 53:1265-1273
- Henderson B, Pockley AG. Molecular chaperones and protein folding catalysts as intercellular signalling regulators in immunity and inflammation. Journal of Leukocyte Biology 2010, 88:445-462
- Henderson B, Calderwood SK, Coates ARM, Cohen I, van Eden W, Lehner T, Pockley AG. Caught with their PAMPs down? The extracellular signalling actions of molecular chaperones are not due to microbial contaminants. Cell Stress & Chaperones 2010, 15:123-141.
- Schilling D, Gehrmann M, Steinem C, De Maio A, Pockley AG, Abend M, Molls M, Multhoff G. Binding of heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) to extracellular phosphatidylserine (PS) promotes killing of normoxic and hypoxic tumor cells. FASEB J 2009, 23:2467-2477.
- Zhang X, He M, Cheng L, Chen Y, Zhou L, Zeng H, Pockley AG, Hu FB, Wu T. Elevated heat shock protein 60 levels are associated with higher risk of coronary heart disease in Chinese. Circulation 2008, 118:2687-2693.
- Gehrmann M, Liebisch G, Schmitz G, Anderson R, Steinem C, De Maio A, Pockley G, Multhoff G. Tumor-specific Hsp70 plasma membrane localization is enabled by the glycosphingolipid Gb3. PLoS ONE 2008, e1925 (9 pages).
- Slack LK, Muthana M, Hopkinson K, Suvarna SK, Espigares E, Mirza S, Fairburn B, Pockley AG. Administration of the stress protein gp96 prolongs rat cardiac allograft survival, modifies rejection-associated inflammatory events and induces a state of peripheral T cell hyporesponsiveness. Cell Stress & Chaperones 2007, 12:71-82.