Dr Alexis Barr leads the Cell Cycle Control team in the Institute of Clinical Sciences at the MRC-LMS. Their aim is to understand how proliferation-quiescence decisions are made. Achieving balanced proliferation-quiescence decisions is vital during normal development and in maintaining tissue homeostasis. Dysregulation of this control leads to hyperproliferative diseases, including cancer and fibrosis.

During her PhD at the CRUK Cambridge Institute with Dr Fanni Gergely, Alexis investigated the role of centrosomes in the assembly of mitotic spindles. She moved to the Institute of Cancer Research in 2010 to work with Dr Chris Bakal to understand how cell cycle entry is controlled. During this time, Alexis also collaborated with Prof. Bela Novak at the University of Oxford. In 2018, she was awarded a CRUK Career Development Fellowship to investigate the role of quiescence in cancer. She started her lab at the Institute of Clinical Sciences in September 2018. The Cell Cycle Control team have expertise in quantitative single-cell imaging and molecular and cellular biology. They also collaborate with mathematicians to generate a mechanistic understanding of cell cycle control.