Ian Copple
Professor Ian Copple is a Medical Research Council Senior Fellow in the Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology.
What type of fellowship do you have?
I hold a Senior Non-clinical Fellowship from the Medical Research Council
When did you start your fellowship?
January 2023.
What were you doing prior to your fellowship?
I was a Senior Lecturer here in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, where I am still based. Prior to this I was appointed as one of the Faculty’s first Tenure Track Fellows in 2013.
Why did you choose to undertake your fellowship with the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences?
My department, within the Faculty, is the largest Pharmacology department in the UK with an international reputation for its drug efficacy and safety research. My group was already well established in the department when I applied for the fellowship. The project exploits some of the world class facilities operated by LIV-SRF, including multi-‘omics and preclinical imaging. The department is also in close proximity to clinical collaborators at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, facilitating access to patient samples including through the Human Liver Research Facility.
How does the Medical Research Council fund your work?
The fellowship funds half of my salary plus the full salaries of two post-doctoral researchers in my group, all for 5 years. The fellowship also covers research costs (consumables, equipment purchase and facility access fees), travel for the team to a number of conferences, and training costs.
What is the aim of your research?
Oxidative stress (an imbalance of protective antioxidants and harmful free radicals) is implicated in many forms of disease. Several pharmaceutical companies are developing drugs that dampen oxidative stress by stimulating the antioxidant transcription factor Nrf2. The fellowship project tackles two knowledge gaps in this area:
- An uncertainty around whether using Nrf2 activating drugs to treat diseases that are known to increase a patient's risk of developing cancer could further promote tumour formation. This is linked to the fact that high levels of Nrf2 activity have been detected in many forms of cancer.
- A lack of awareness about the best way to monitor the response of Nrf2 to drug stimulation in patients using samples such as blood. This is important as we need ways to confirm that a drug has stimulated Nrf2, to link this to any positive effects on a disease. This will help us to confirm that stimulating Nrf2 with drugs is a good strategy in patients.
What inspired you to look at this field?
I’ve had a long-standing interest in the pharmacology and toxicology of the Nrf2 pathway, and it’s an exciting time to be involved in this field given that several Nrf2 activating drugs have recently been licenced or are in the clinical phases of development. Overall, this fellowship will improve our understanding of the benefits and risks of using drugs to stimulate Nrf2 and enhance our ability to monitor therapeutic responses in the clinic. This will support the development of new medicines in different forms of disease, ultimately benefiting patients.