Dr Pinar Uysal Onganer

My research experience involves a range of cell signalling mechanisms such as Wnt signalling, the functional and molecular aspects of cancer. I have worked at Imperial College London for 9 years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. I have studied on voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) expression in metastatic disease at Prof Djamgoz’s laboratory and was first to demonstrate functional upregulation of VGSCs in human small-cell lung cancer, in vitro and in vivo. Then I started collaboration with Baroness Greenfield and demonstrated that an acetylcholinesterase-derived peptide has significant effects on metastatic behaviour of human breast cancer cell lines. Then, I have joined Dr Kypta's lab Prostate Cancer Group at Oncology Dept, Imperial College London and since then have been working on Wnt signalling and microRNAs in cancer. 

I have joined University of Westminster at 2015 and am involved in teaching on Molecular Science and Diagnostics, Principles of Molecular Medicine, Advance Cancer Biology, Medical Genetics in Practice, and Cell Signalling and Genetics modules in both UG and PG levels. Prior to that I worked at University of Bedfordshire for 3 years as a Senior Lecturer of Cell and Molecular Biology. I am an honorary Lecturer at Imperial College London and teach annually the Cancer Biology Course (metastasis and tumour suppressor genes) there. I also give 'cancer stem cells lecture and Human Genome Project' lectures annually to University of Greenwich.

I became a Senior Fellow of HEA at 2018 and a Reader in Molecular Biology in 2022. I have been actively involved in fund-raising activities with charities such as the Cancer Research UK, Pancreatic Cancer UK and the Prostate Cancer Charity (PCC). I am an Athena Swan Coordinator and Cancer Research Group Lead at University of Westminster and run STEMM activities for local schools.

Wnt signalling

Cancer Stem Cells

Metastatis

Prostate Cancer

Breast Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer

Non-coding RNAs

For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.