Rate My Professor Heike Laman

Heike Laman is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Biology and Head of the Department of Pathology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of Clare College, serving as Director of Studies for Part IB Biology of Disease, Part II Pathology, and Part II Genetics, and as Graduate Admissions Tutor. Laman received her BSc in Microbiology and Immunology, with double minors in Chemistry and Biology, from the University of Miami in 1990, graduating cum laude with General Honours and elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies. She earned MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees from Columbia University in 1997, researching heterochromatin assembly and transcriptional regulation in yeast with Dr. David Shore. Her postdoctoral work included a Fellowship at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Francis Crick Institute) with Prof. Nic Jones and Dr. Gordon Peters on viral cyclins and cell cycle regulation, followed by a Senior Research Fellowship at UCL's Wolfson Institute with Prof. Chris Boshoff, funded by the Association for International Cancer Research, studying KSHV-driven cancers. In 2005, she established her independent laboratory at the Department of Pathology with a Departmental Early Career Research Fellowship.

Laman's research centers on ubiquitin ligases, enzymes that modify proteins via ubiquitin to regulate stability, localization, activity, and interactions, enabling responses to environmental stress and infections. Her lab examines these signals in normal and pathological conditions to uncover mechanisms of diseases including Parkinson's disease, cancer, male sterility, and anaemia. Projects include neuroprotective roles of Fbxo7/PARK15 using cell lines, 3D organoids, and mouse models; Fbxo7/PI31 proteasome regulation; F-box proteins in cancer; and biotherapeutics like nanobody-based PROTACs and stapled peptides targeting ubiquitin ligases, collaborating with AstraZeneca. She holds Fellowships of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) and Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Key publications are 'Restoration of Fbxo7 expression in dopaminergic neurons restores tyrosine hydroxylase in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease' (Al Rawi et al., bioRxiv 2024), 'Study of an FBXO7 patient mutation reveals Fbxo7 and PI31 co-regulate proteasomes and mitochondria' (Al Rawi et al., FEBS J 2024), 'Fbxo7 promotes Cdk6 activity to inhibit PFKP and glycolysis in T cells' (Harris et al., J Cell Biol 2022), and 'The FBXL family of F-box proteins: variations on a theme' (Mason & Laman, Open Biol 2020).