Alison Forrester

I did my BSc in Pharmacology and PhD in Toxicology and Dermatology at the University of Newcastle, UK. Interested in autophagy and disease formation, I took a Postdoc position in Carmine Settembre’s lab at the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) in Naples, Italy, where I studied the role of autophagy and ER-phagy in protein trafficking, then to Ludger Johannes’ lab at the Institute Curie in Paris, France, where I studied endocytosis using advanced imaging techniques (including Lattice light sheet microscopy) and inhibition of the early secretory pathway using a newly discovered compound, Retro-2. 

My team HoMER (Homeostasis and Modulation of ERES)’s work at the University of Namur is based on the latter project: we work on the effects of modulation of Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) exit sites (ERES) on cellular homeostasis, deciphering the intricacies of ERES function, and how ERES modulation can be applied to treatment of diseases of aberrant secretion. We use light microscopy to study protein trafficking and the secretory pathway, specialising in confocal and live cell microscopy, including lattice light sheet microscopy.

We work in a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary environment, combining cell biology, chemical biology, advanced microscopy and image analysis to build fundamental projects that will develop into translation research.