Biographical Sketch

1966 - 1972 University College London
1969: BSc in Biochemistry with First Class Honours
1973: PhD on nuclear envelopes; supervisor - Irving Johnston
1972 - 1973 EMBO postdoc in Freiburg, Germany with Werner Franke.
1973 - 1984 Imperial Cancer Research Laboratories London (ICRF, now part of CRUK). With John Cairns and Julian Gross
1984 - 2018 MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology as a group leader.
2019 - present MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Emeritus.

Prizes/Honours:

1993 - Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Scholar
1997 - Elected EMBO Member (European Molecular Biology Organization)
2020 - Gaspard Monge Visiting Professor, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris (suspended)

Main Publications since 2005

Kay, R.R. (2021) Macropinocytosis: Biology and mechanisms. Cells & Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cdev.2021.203713
Srivastava, N., Traynor, D., Piel, M., Kabla, A.J. & Kay, R.R. (2020). Pressure sensing through Piezo channels controls whether cells migrate with blebs or pseudopods. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, USA, 117, 2506-2512. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1905730117
Kay, R.R., Williams, T.D., Manton, J.D. & Paschke, P. (2019). Living on soup: macropinocytic feeding in amoebae. Int. J. Dev. Biol. 63, 473-483. doi: 10.1387/ijdb.190220rk
William, T.D., Sew-Yeu Peak-Chew, S-Y., Paschke, P. & Kay, R.R. (2019). Akt and SGK kinases are required for efficient feeding by macropinocytosis. J. Cell Sci. 132, jcs224998. doi:10.1242/jcs.224998
Nichols, J.M.E., Paschke, P., Peak-Chew, S., Williams, T.D., Tweedy, L. Skehel, M., Stephens, E., Chubb, J. & Kay, R.R. (2019). The atypical MAP kinase ErkB transmits distinct chemotactic signals through a core signalling module. Dev. Cell. doi:10.1016/j.devcel.2018.12.001
King, J.S. & Kay, R.R. (2019). The origins and evolution of macropinocytosis. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 374: 20180158
Paschke, P., Knecht, D.A., Silale, A., Traynor, D., Williams, T.D. Thomason, P.A., Insall, R.H., Chubb, J.R., Kay, R.R., & Veltman, D.M. (2018). Rapid and efficient genetic engineering of both wild-type and axenic strains of Dictyostelium discoideum. PLoS One 13: e0196809.
Williams, T.D. & Kay, R.R. (2018). The physiological regulation of macropinocytosis during Dictyostelium growth and development. J. Cell Sci. 131, jcs213736. doi:10.1242/jcs.213736.
Traynor, D. & Kay, R.R. (2017). A polycycstin-type transient receptor potential (Trp) channel that is activated by ATP. Biol. Open 6, 200-209.
Veltman, D.M., Williams, T.D., Bloomfield, G., Chen, B-C., Betzig, E., Insall, R.H. & Kay, R.R. (2016). A plasma membrane template for macropinocytic cups. eLife; 5:e20085.
Bloomfield, G. & Kay, R.R. (2016) Uses and abuses of macropinocytosis. J. Cell Sci. 129, 2697-2705.
Weis, F., Giudice, E., Churcher, M., Jin, L., Hilcenko, C., Wong C.C., Traynor, D., Kay, R.R. & Warren, A.J. (2015). Mechanism of eIF6 release from the nascent 60S ribosomal subunit. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 22, 914-919.
Bloomfield, G., Traynor, D., Sander, S.P., Veltman, D., Pachebat, J.A. & Kay, R.R. (2015). Neurofibromin controls macropinocytosis and phagocytosis in Dictyostelium. eLife; 4:04940.
Clark, J.*, Kay, R.R.*, Kielkowska, A., Niewczas, I., Fets, L., Oxley, D., Stephens, L.R. & Hawkins, P.T. (2014) Dictyostelium uses ether-linked inositol phospholipids for intracellular signalling. EMBO J. DOI: 10.15252/embj.201488677
Tyson, R.A., Zatulovskiy, E., Kay, R.R. & Bretschneider, T. (2014) How blebs and pseudopods cooperate during chemotaxis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 111, 11703-11708.
Hirst, J., Schlach, A., Norcott, J.P., Traynor, D., Bloomfield, G., Antrobus, R., Kay, R.R., Dacks, J.B. & Robinson, M.S. (2014) TSET: an ancient and widespread membrane trafficking complex. eLife 2014;3:e02866. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.02866
Zatulovskiy, E., Tyson, R., Bretschneider, T. & Kay, R.R. (2014) Bleb-driven chemotaxis of Dictyostelium cells. J. Cell Biol. 204, 1027-1044.
Fets, L., Nichols, J. & Kay, R.R. (2014) A PIP5 kinase essential for efficient chemotactic signaling. Curr. Biol. 24, 415-421.
Hoeller, O., Bolourani, P., Clark, J., Stephens, L.R., Hawkins, P.T., Weiner, O.D. & Kay, R.R. (2013) Two distinct functions for PI3-kinases in macropinocytosis. J. Cell Sci. 126, 4296-4307.
Velazquez, F., Peak-Chew, S.Y., Fernández, I.S., Neumann, C.S. & Kay, R.R. (2011) Identification of a eukaryotic reductive dechlorinase and characterization of its mechanism of action on its natural substrate. Chem. & Biol. 18, 1252-1260.
Wong, C.C., Traynor, D., Basse, N., Kay, R.R. & Warren, A.J. (2011) Defective ribosome assembly in Shwachman-Diamond syndrome. Blood, 118, 4305-4312.
Sucgang, R., et al (2011) Comparative genomics of the social amoebae Dictyostelium discoideum and Dictyostelium purpureum. Genome Biol. 12, R20.
Bloomfield, G., Skelton, J., Ivens, A., Tanaka, Y. & Kay, R.R. (2010) Sex determination in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Science 330, 1533-1536.
Zanchi, R., Howard, G., Bretscher, M.S. & Kay, R.R. (2010) The exocytic gene secA is required for Dictyostelium cell motility and osmoregulation. J. Cell Sci. 123, 3226-3234.
Neumann, C.S., Walsh, C.T., & Kay, R.R. (2010) A flavin-dependent halogenase catalyzes the chlorination step in the biosynthesis of Dictyostelium DIF-1. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 107, 5798-5803.
Kay, R.R. & Thompson, C.R.L. (2009) Forming patterns in development without morphogen gradients: scattered differentiation and sorting out. In Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, ‘Generation and Interpretation of Morphogen Gradients’ J. Briscoe, P. Lawrence & J-P Vincent, eds; Cold Spring Harbor Press.
Kay, R.R., Langridge, P., Traynor, D. & Hoeller, O. (2008) Changing directions in the study of chemotaxis. Nature Rev. Molec. Cell Biol. 9, 455-463.
Bloomfield, G., Tanaka, Y., Skelton, J., Ivens, A. & Kay, R.R. (2008) Widespread duplications in the genomes of laboratory stocks of Dictyostelium discoideum. Genome Biology 9, R75.
Saito, T., Kato, A. & Kay, R.R. (2008) DIF-1 induces the basal disc of the Dictyostelium fruiting body. Dev. Biol. 317, 444-453.
Traynor, D. & Kay, R.R. (2007) Possible roles of the endocytic cycle in cell motility. J. Cell Sci. 120, 2318-2327.
Hoeller, O. & Kay, R.R. (2007) Chemotaxis in the absence of PIP3 gradients. Curr. Biol.17, 813-817.
Austin, M.B., Saito, T., Bowman, M.E., Haydock, S., Kato, A., Moore, B.S., Kay, R.R.* and Noel, J.P.* (2006) Biosynthesis of Dictyostelium Differentiation Inducing Factor by a hybrid type I fatty acid-type III polyketide synthase. Nature Chemical Biology 2, 494-502 *senior co-authors.
Langridge, P.D. & Kay, R.R. (2006) Blebbing of Dictyostelium cells in response to chemoattractant. Exp. Cell Res. 312, 2009-2017.
Saito, T., Taylor, G.W., Yang, J-Y., Neuhaus, D., Stetsenko, D., Kato, A. & Kay, R.R. (2006) Identification of new differentiation inducing factors from Dictyostelium discoideum. BBA 1760, 754-761.
Eichinger, J.A. et al (2005) The genome of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Nature, 435, 43-57.