Hasan Al-Habib, a final year MRC-DTP student supervised by Prof Ashcroft has been offered a competitive UKRI Policy Internship after being interviewed for the 2021/2022 round. 

Review published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (Signaling Section), entitled ‘The Contextual Essentiality of Mitochondrial Genes in Cancer, by Luke William Thomas, Margaret Ashcroft. DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2021.695351

Research paper accepted in principle (Jan 20, 2021), has been fully accepted for publication in Nature Communications Biology. Luke Thomas, Cinzia Esposito et al and Margaret Ashcroft. Genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 deletion screen defines mitochondrial gene essentiality and identifies routes for tumour cell viability in hypoxia.

Review accepted in Biochemical Society Transactions. Hasan Al-Habib and Margaret Ashcroft. CHCHD4 (MIA40) and the mitochondrial disulfide relay system (https://doi.org/10.1042/BST20190232).

Delighted the Ashcroft lab opens after lockdown, and group adjusting excellently to working differently due to COVID restrictions and social distancing.

Due to the COVID pandemic, the Ashcroft lab closed and the group continued to work remotely and meet virtually. During lockdown, Basma Greef was seconded to NHS clinical duties; Hasan Al-Habib worked with the COVID testing programme; Lucas Maddalena returned to Canada.

Prof Ashcroft was invited to speak at the Keystone meeting on Hypoxia: Molecules, Mechanisms and Disease (Colorado, USA), and gave a talk entitled ‘The Redox-Regulated Disulphide Relay System Controls Hypoxia Responses’, presenting work from the group including Hasan Al-Habib.

Prof Ashcroft gave the Keynote Lecture, entitled ‘Mitochondria and Hypoxia Signalling’ at the 2nd Mitochondrial Biology and Toxicology Research day hosted by the Cambridge Alliance on Medicines Safety (CAMS) and organised jointly by AstraZeneca, GSK and the MRC

Prof Ashcroft attended the 1st ‘MITOchats’ Summer Symposium at the Max Planck Institute for Biology and Ageing in Cologne, Germany (http://sfb1218.uni-koeln.de/mitochats_2019symposium.html). Prof Ashcroft gave an invited talk entitled ‘Mitochondria and Hypoxia Signalling’. MITOchats was an excellent symposium with talks from outstanding international speakers.

Prof Ashcroft gave the Patrick Pollard Lecture, entitled ‘The Mitochondrial Disulphide Relay System (DRS) in Physiology and Disease’, at the 10th Annual MitOX Meeting 2019, University of Oxford, UK.