Paul Clarke is Honorary Professor of Cancer Cell Biology at the University of Dundee and, since 2017, Director of the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute in Brisbane, Australia. He joined the University of Dundee as a Senior Lecturer in 1998 and was awarded a personal chair in 2005. He has been Research Coordinator for the Biomedical Research Centre (2002-2007), Head of Biomedical Research for the College of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing (2007-2008), Head of the Division of Cancer Research (2011-2015), and Director of Research and Associate Dean, School of Medicine (2015-2017). Previously he was a senior research fellow at the University of Manchester (1994-1998) and a postdoctoral research fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg (1991-1994). As a student, he studied Biochemistry at Bristol and carried out research on AMP-activated protein kinase for his PhD with D. Grahame Hardie at Dundee. Professor Clarke has received an MRC Career Development Award, Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award and research fellowships from The Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK. 

The control of cell proliferation and cell survival is critical for the normal development and tissue homeostasis of multicellular organisms. Defects in these processes underlie a number of major human diseases. Cancer is associated with loss of controls over cell division and evasion of cell death. In order to understand how cancer develops and how it may be treated more effectively, we need to understand the molecular mechanisms controlling these processes. Our goal is to understand what determines determine the balance between cell cycle controls and the induction of cell death in response to stress signals, DNA damage and during cell division.