Rate My Professor Matthew Freeman

Professor Matthew Freeman is the Professor of Pathology and Head of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford, as well as a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. He obtained a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Genetics from Imperial College London. In 1987, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1992, he served as a member of the scientific staff in the Cell Biology Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, rising to Head of the Division in 2007. He assumed his current roles at Oxford in 2013.

Freeman's research centres on intercellular communication and signalling, particularly the interface between membrane proteins, cell biology, and human disease mechanisms. He discovered the rhomboid-like superfamily of intramembrane proteases and pseudoproteases, which cleave transmembrane domains to regulate processes such as extracellular signal production. These proteins play key roles in inflammation, cancer, and signalling, including iRhom2 regulation of ERBB signalling in KRAS-driven lung cancer, conformational surveillance of Orai1 to control CRAC channels, ADAM17/TACE trafficking and activation, and protection against retinal degeneration in Drosophila. His laboratory integrates cell biology, genetics, molecular biology, and structural approaches. Notable publications include 'iRhom2 regulates ERBB signalling to promote KRAS-driven tumour growth of lung cancer cells' (2022, Journal of Cell Science), 'Conformational surveillance of Orai1 by a rhomboid intramembrane protease prevents inappropriate CRAC channel activation' (2021, Molecular Cell), 'FRMD8 promotes inflammatory and growth factor signalling by stabilising the iRhom/ADAM17 sheddase complex' (2018, eLife), 'Phosphorylation of iRhom2 at the plasma membrane controls mammalian TACE-dependent inflammatory and growth factor signalling' (2017, eLife), and 'Tumor necrosis factor signaling requires iRhom2 to promote trafficking and activation of TACE' (2012, Science). Freeman's contributions have advanced understanding of membrane proteome regulation, with membrane proteins comprising 30% of the human proteome and over half of drug targets. He has received the EMBO Gold Medal (2001), Novartis Medal and Prize of the Biochemical Society (2015), Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), and election to the Royal Society (FRS, 2006). Additional roles include Chair of EMBO Council since 2023 and teaching biochemistry, medical genetics, and signalling to Oxford undergraduates. He teaches an introduction to biochemistry and medical genetics to first-year medical students and a course on signalling and subcellular structure to third-year undergraduates in Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.