Douglas Philip Dyer, Ph.D.
Sir Henry Dale Fellow
Wellcome Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, University of Manchester, UK
Twitter: @tripledougdyer
Dr. Dyer undertook his Ph.D. research investigating how an anti-inflammatory protein functions by disrupting the interactions between chemokines and their extracellular matrix glycosaminoglycan binding partners. Supervised by Prof. Anthony Day, Dr. Caroline Milner and Dr. Amanda Proudfoot.
Dr. Dyer then went on to focus on the biological importance of chemokine: GAG interactions in leukocyte migration during his postdoc in the lab of Prof. Tracy Handel. During this time, he and his colleagues demonstrated that chemokines have strikingly different interactions with GAGs according to their oligomerisation potential. A collaboration with Dr. Ralf Richter’s group then described how chemokines can re-structure these GAG chains, proposing a new mechanism underlying chemokine function.
During his second postdoc, with Prof. Gerry Graham, Dr. Dyer focused on the biological role of the chemokine receptors CXCR2, CCR1, CCR2, CCR3 and CCR5 and was part of the team that demonstrated their specificity of function during leukocyte recruitment.
Dr. Dyer is now a Wellcome Trust and Royal Society funded Sir Henry Dale fellow leading a group at the University of Manchester exploring the collaboration and biological importance of chemokines and the glycocalyx.