Rate My Professor Martin Cann

Professor Martin Cann is Head of the Department of Biosciences at Durham University, as well as Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Fellow of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing. His research focuses on carbon dioxide (CO₂) sensing and its direct interactions with cellular processes, particularly through carbamate post-translational modifications on the lysine epsilon-amino group. This includes investigations into how CO₂ regulates cellular chemical reactions, transport, maintenance of the cellular environment, behavior, and immunity. With relevance to crop responses to environmental change, insect vector-borne disease, and public health, his work spans model systems from bacteria to eukaryotes. Key research interests are bicarbonate, biochemistry, carbon dioxide, cell biology, hypercapnia, hypocapnia, inorganic carbon, molecular biology, and signal transduction. Collaborating across disciplines with physicists, chemists, and mathematicians, Cann's laboratory explores novel CO₂ receptors such as allophycocyanin A in cyanobacterial phycobilisomes and ubiquitin as a CO₂-binding protein.

Cann has earned significant recognition, including Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2023), Chair of RCUK Panel D (2022), Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (2021), co-recipient of the Institute of Physics Rosalind Franklin Silver Medal (2020), and Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow (2003-2005). He chairs the REF 2029 sub-panel for Biological Sciences. His impactful publications include 'Bacteria encode post-mortem protein catabolism that enables altruistic nutrient recycling' (Nature Communications, 2025), 'Sensing molecular carbon dioxide - a translational focus for respiratory disease' (Physiological Reviews, 2025), 'Multiple carbamylation events are required for differential modulation of Cx26 hemichannels and gap junctions by CO₂' (Journal of Physiology, 2025), 'Allophycocyanin A is a carbon dioxide receptor in the cyanobacterial phycobilisome' (Nature Communications, 2022), 'Ubiquitin is a carbon dioxide-binding protein' (Science Advances, 2021), and the landmark 'Soluble adenylyl cyclase as an evolutionarily conserved bicarbonate sensor' (Science, 2000). With over 3,000 citations, his contributions have advanced the understanding of gas-mediated signaling in biology.