Professor Victor Tybulewicz FMedSci

Victor Tybulewicz is Head of the Division of Immune Cell Biology at NIMR. In 1991 he was one of the first scientists to successfully use gene targeting in order to inactivate genes in the mouse. He has gone on to utilise these techniques to address important problems in medical research with significant contributions in two distinct areas. Firstly, he has used gene targeting to study signal transduction in B and T lymphocytes. He has shown key roles for the Syk tyrosine kinase in B cell development and function, and in IgE-mediated mast cell activation. In addition he has shown a key function for the proto-oncogene Vav1 in T lymphocyte development and activation, again suggesting that Vav1 may be a useful drug target in certain cancers and autoimmune disorders. In a second area of research, Victor Tybulewicz, together with his colleague Elizabeth Fisher, developed a mouse model of Down Syndrome by generating a mouse strain bearing human chromosome 21. This research has great promise for identifying novel therapeutic strategies for Down Syndrome, the leading cause of mental retardation.