Professor Mark Rider

UCLouvain

Mark Rider was born in West Yorkshire, UK. He is Professor of Biochemistry at Université catholique de Louvain Brussels campus and Group Leader of the Protein Phosphorylation “PHOS” research team at the de Duve Institue. Mark Rider graduated in Biochemistry at Bristol University in 1979, then moved to University College London where he completed his PhD on the control of glycerol phosphate acyltransferase activity in white adipose tissue under the supervision of David Saggerson. In 1983 he joined the group of Louis Hue in Brussels and was the first to provide evidence for the existence of tissue specific isoenzymes of the key control enzyme of glycolysis, 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase (PFK-2). He went on to show that heart PFK-2 was activated by insulin via protein kinase B (PKB)-induced phosphorylation and that the heart isoenzyme was also activated by AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) during ischaemia, providing a new explanation for the Pasteur effect. He has continued to work on the control of cell function by PKB and AMPK and identified several new targets of AMPK. He also elucidated crosstalks between the AMPK and other signalling pathways. An important aspect of his research is the use of mass spectrometry, established for phosphorylation site identification and studies of differential changes in protein expression.   

Website: https://www.deduveinstitute.be/research/metabolism-hormones/diabetes