Professor Sandip Patel is appointed our new Head of Research Department

The UCL Research Department of Cell & Developmental Biology has a new head, effective 01 April 2025, namely, Professor Sandip Patel. Simultaneously, Professor Barbara Conradt steps back, after an extended period of successful leadership.

From 01 April 2025, Professor Sandip Patel is the new Head of the UCL Research Department of Cell & Developmental Biology (CDB).  Sandip is no stranger to the department, having been its deputy since January 2020, where he is also Professor of Cell Signalling. 

The Head of Research Department (HoRD) role at UCL is an unremunerated academic leadership role, which reports to the Dean through the Director of the Biosciences Division.  Sandip is therefore now responsible for the organisation and general conduct of UCL CDB. HoRDs are expected to lead research activity; promote enterprise and knowledge transfer; provide academic supervision and mentorship for Research Department members; and contribute to teaching leadership as required by the Division / Faculty.  Nevertheless, as well as undertaking the role of HoRD, Sandip's previous teaching and research activities are expected to continue.          

Sandip's lab focuses on the role of acidic organelles, such as lysosomes, in calcium ion signalling - in both healthy and diseased environments.  Changes in cytosolic Ca2+ form the basis of an ubiquitous, evolutionarily-conserved signalling pathway. These Ca2+ signals drive many, if not all, cellular processes from the very start of life (fertilisation), during vital processes such as neurotransmission and through to death (apoptosis).

It is now clear that so-called "acidic Ca2+ stores" dynamically regulate cytosolic Ca2+ levels, both in isolation and in conjunction with the better-characterised Ca2+ stores of the endoplasmic reticulum. Acidic Ca2+ stores is an umbrella term that describes a cross-kingdom collection of morphologically distinct - yet functionally related - organelles united by their acid and Ca2+-rich interior. Lysosomes and lysosome-related organelles are key acidic Ca2+ stores that are considered functionally related to acido-calcisomes, vacuoles, endosomes, secretory granules and the Golgi complex. The Ca2+ mobilising messenger NAADP plays a critical role in controlling acidic Ca2+ store signalling.

Sandip's team is working to:
(i) define the Ca2+ signalling "toolkit" (channels, transporters) of acidic Ca2+ stores at the molecular level and their evolutionary origins (form);

(ii) probe their physiological roles in processes such as membrane trafficking and cell migration (function); and

(iii) investigate how deviant signalling through these organelles can precipitate disorders such as Parkinson disease (failure).

Sandip has a raft of publications to his name. Prior to joining UCL in 2001, Sandip was a Junior Group Leader at the University of Oxford after having spent some time in the USA as a Travel Fellow. He was awarded his PhD by the University of Cambridge (1995) and a BSc (Hons) at the University of Birmingham (1992).  Further background and details of Professor Patel's publications can be found on his UCL Profile.

At the same time as Sandip stepped up to become HoRD, Professor Barbara Conradt stepped back after an extended period of successful leadership of CDB, having joined us in 2019 from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany. 

There, Barbara had been Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology since 2011, and previously was Professor of Genetics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, USA (2003-2011) and Independent Junior Group Leader, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany (1999-2003).

As Orla O’Donnell, Divisional Manager & Faculty Deputy Director of Operations (UCL Faculty of Life Sciences) said: Barbara has done an excellent job in leading CDB over the past years. The department has flourished and is in a great position to expand and meet many new challenges.

Barbara is of course now able to focus all her attention back onto her research, with her main interest lying in the area of programmed cell death - a physiological process through which unwanted cells are removed from organisms.

We thank Barbara for her leadership and hard work, and congratulate Sandip on this new position.

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