Rate My Professor Heike Laman

Professor Heike Laman is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Biology and Head of the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge. She graduated cum laude with General Honours and a BSc in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Miami in 1990, with double minors in Chemistry and Biology. Laman received her MA, MPhil, and PhD from Columbia University's Department of Microbiology and Immunology, where she studied transcriptional silencing and heterochromatin assembly in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae with Professor David Shore. Awarded a Fellowship from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now the Francis Crick Institute), she conducted postdoctoral research in London on KSHV-encoded cyclins and cell cycle regulation with Drs Nic Jones and Gordon Peters. She then served as Senior Research Fellow at University College London's Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research with Professor Chris Boshoff, funded by the Association for International Cancer Research. In 2005, an Early Career Research Fellowship allowed her to establish her independent laboratory in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge.

The Laman lab investigates ubiquitin ligases, which modify proteins by attaching ubiquitin chains to control their stability, localization, trafficking, and activity. This research examines ubiquitin signalling in normal and pathological conditions to elucidate mechanisms underlying diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, cancer, male sterility, and anaemia, including the neuroprotective role of Fbxo7/PARK15 and proteasome regulation. The group develops biotherapeutic strategies exploiting ubiquitin ligase enzymology, such as PROTACs and nanobodies. Key publications include "Restoration of Fbxo7 expression in dopaminergic neurons restores tyrosine hydroxylase in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease" (2024), "Study of an FBXO7 patient mutation reveals Fbxo7 and PI31 co-regulate proteasomes and mitochondria" (2024), "Fbxo7 promotes Cdk6 activity to inhibit PFKP and glycolysis in T cells" (2022), and "Analysis of the FBXO7 promoter reveals overlapping Pax5 and c-Myb binding sites functioning in B cells" (2021). Elected Fellow of Clare College in 2014, she serves as Director of Studies for Pathology and Genetics and Postgraduate Admissions Tutor. Laman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.