Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Award winner

Martijn Gloerich

After finishing his first degree Biomedical Sciences at Utrecht University, Martijn Gloerich started his PhD at the end of 2005 at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the lab of Johannes Bos. He is studying s the regulation of the protein Epac1, which functions as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for the small GTPase Rap. Epac is directly activated by cAMP, which represents the main regulatory mechanism for Epac in time. His work has shown that Epac1 is also regulated by cAMP in space, as Epac1 translocates to the plasma membrane in response to the binding of cAMP. In addition, he has presented alternative anchoring mechanisms that mediate the targeting of Epac1, which allows for further control of Epac1 within the cell.