Michael Wakelam's Biography

Michael Wakelam, Professor, Babraham Institute

Professor Michael Wakelam is the Director of the Babraham Institute, an independent charitable life sciences institute, sponsored by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. It undertakes world-leading innovative research and advanced training with relevance to the biomedical, biotechnological, pharmaceutical and healthcare communities. The commercialisation of the Institute's research is managed by its wholly-owned trading subsidiary, Babraham Bioscience Technologies Ltd.

Professor Wakelam trained initially in medical biochemistry and biochemistry at the University of Birmingham. He has over twenty years research experience in the area of cell signalling; focusing particularly in recent years on the regulation of signalling pathways in normal and cancer cells and in inflammatory responses, and on interactions between different molecules in the pathways. The principal aim of his current research is to understand how and where in cells, signalling phosphatidic acid is produced, and to identify the molecular targets and the cellular processes regulated by phosphatidic acid.