Zoi Diamantopoulou is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Angeliki Malliri’s group and she was recently awarded the prestigious BACR Chris Marshall Prize for Cell Signalling. This award recognises and rewards the achievements of a young scientist in the field of cell signalling.

Chris Marshall was a world renowned cell biologist best known for his contributions to cell signalling via Rho family of GTPases, especially to our understanding of how the Ras-Raf-Mek-Erk pathway enables cancer cells to disseminate in the body.

Since Zoi has been at the Institute, she has made a number of important contributions in science and most notably uncovered dual mechanisms of inhibiting YAP/TAZ by TIAM1, a specific GEF for Rac1, that oppose invasiveness of colorectal cancer cells, leading to a first author publication in Cancer Cell. Critically she demonstrated that TIAM1 interacts with TAZ in the cytoplasm to promote TAZ degradation by the destruction complex, whereas it antagonises binding of TAZ/YAP to TEAD in the nucleus. This study is of great significant interest in the field as it provides new insights into the Rac1 and YAP/TAZ signalling pathways.

Upon receiving the prize, Zoi said, “I am truly honoured that BACR recognised my scientific contribution of how different signalling pathways regulate cell migration and I deeply appreciate that I was nominated by Professor Caroline Dive, an accomplished and renowned woman in science.

“This prize motivates me further to study the complexity of cell signalling pathways which will help us develop effective and personalised therapies, with significant potential to benefit human health.”

Zoi will receive a prize of £1,000 and the opportunity to present an oral paper at the British Association for Cancer Research Student Conference later this year with all conference expenses paid.

We warmly congratulate Zoi on her success and wish her all the best on the next stage of her academic career.