Projects we fund

About the research team

Dr Oleg Gerasimenko is one of the leading scientists in the UK working on acute pancreatitis. Together with Dr Julia Gerasimenko they made the important discovery (Cell, 1995) cited more than 313 times (Web of Science) about fundamental mechanisms of calcium signalling. They have an excellent track record in researching pathophysiology of AP and have made significant progress characterizing the pathological effects. The most important findings, published in PNAS (2009, 2011, 2013) and Current Biology 2012 clarified the molecular mechanisms responsible for AP initiation. Recent paper in Journal Clinical Investigation 2018 provided a real hope of developing effective treatment by using supplementation with the natural sugar galactose. Dr Oleg Gerasimenko is a member of the Editorial board of Pflügers Archiv–Eur JPhysiol, and has had continuous Medical Research Council support from 2003. Dr Julia Gerasimenko has also been supported by the Medical Research Council since 2007. They are also both Faculty Members (F1000-Gastrointestinal-Physiology). Dr Sujith Samarasinghe is Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. He is a key member of the national leukaemia toxicity group and has worked on defining toxicities for UKALL 2011, with a view to developing strategies to reduce their incidence. Recently, all applicants published together the first study exploring the molecular mechanism underlying AP induced as a side-effect of Asparaginase treatment of ALL (Peng 2016) and potential treatment (Peng 2018), therefore have the ability to make significant progress in the proposed grant period.