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peter-zammit

Professor Peter Zammit

Professor of Cell Biology

Research interests

  • Cell Biology

Contact details

Biography

I completed a PhD in muscle regeneration at King’s College London, before working on gene regulation and heart development with Professor Margaret Buckingham at the Pasteur Institute (Paris). Next, I worked with Professor Terence Partridge investigating muscle stem cells at Imperial College London, before starting my own group at King’s College London in 2005.

My core research is directed at understanding how muscle satellite cells are regulated in healthy and diseased skeletal muscle and their roles in cancer. Skeletal muscle is an archetypal adult stem cell model, in which maintenance, growth and repair of functionally specialised post-mitotic cells is achieved by recruitment of undifferentiated precursors. The functional unit of a skeletal muscle is the myofibre: a giant syncytial cell maintained by hundreds of post-mitotic myonuclei. The routine needs for myonuclear homeostasis, together with the more sporadic demands for hypertrophy and repair, are performed by muscle satellite cells. These resident stem cells are normally mitotically quiescent in mature muscle, and so must first be activated to undergo extensive proliferation to generate myoblasts that eventually differentiate to provide new myonuclei. In muscle wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophies though, this regenerative capacity is gradually degraded.

Current research in the group includes investigating the contribution of satellite cell dysfunction and mechanisms of disease progression in Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy and Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy, together with developing potential therapies.  We also have an interest in rhabdomyosarcoma: cancer that exhibits myogenic traits. 

    Research

    Zammit-group-banner
    The Zammit Group

    The Zammit Group is part of the Randall Centre for Cell & Molecular Biophysics.

    News

    MAGIC consortium to accelerate development of gene therapies for muscular dystrophies

    The MAGIC consortium brings together 15 international partners to transform the treatment landscape for muscular dystrophies

    MAGIC Muscular Dystrophies

    Scientists highlight a mechanism for declining muscle function in muscular dystrophy

    The discovery marks an important step in understanding the molecular basis of Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.

    Muscular dystrophy

    New studies highlight a common mechanism for declining muscle function

    The results improve our understanding of neuromuscular disorders

    shoulders

      Research

      Zammit-group-banner
      The Zammit Group

      The Zammit Group is part of the Randall Centre for Cell & Molecular Biophysics.

      News

      MAGIC consortium to accelerate development of gene therapies for muscular dystrophies

      The MAGIC consortium brings together 15 international partners to transform the treatment landscape for muscular dystrophies

      MAGIC Muscular Dystrophies

      Scientists highlight a mechanism for declining muscle function in muscular dystrophy

      The discovery marks an important step in understanding the molecular basis of Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.

      Muscular dystrophy

      New studies highlight a common mechanism for declining muscle function

      The results improve our understanding of neuromuscular disorders

      shoulders