Paul Evans, Principal Investigator
Current.
Paul Evans leads an award-winning laboratory that has discovered multiple molecular mechanisms that drive atherosclerosis. He is now translating this discovery science to transform the lives of people with cardiovascular disease by developing siRNA-nanoparticle formulations to target disease-causing RNAs in arteries. Paul is co-lead for Cardiovascular Disease Research at the University of Sheffield (26 Principal Investigators; £24M funding). Paul has won many prestigious awards for his research, most notably the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ which is their highest award for scientific excellence. He was elected Fellow of the ESC and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. Paul has several roles in supporting early career scientists. He Chairs the Fellowship Committee for the National Centre for the 3Rs (NC3Rs), and also Chairs the Medical Research Foundation Heart Disease Panel and the ESC Basic Science Fellowship Committee that award funding to the best minds. As Secretary of the ESC Council for Basic Cardiovascular Science, Paul has been innovative in organizing and chairing mentoring events for early career researchers including ‘meet-the-expert’ sessions.
Biography.
Paul’s early research as a PhD student in Cambridge, UK and then as a Post-doc in Seattle, USA produced 10 first-author papers on the mechanisms of vascular inflammation. He then received Career Development and Senior Fellowships held at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge which led to the discovery of the OTU family of deubiquitinating enzymes with critical roles in multiple diseases including cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia and rheumatoid arthritis. This pioneering work opened a new field of research, evidenced by >700 original articles (420 authors) now written on this family. Since establishing his lab in 2004, Paul has applied his basic science training to discover the inflammatory and mechanosensitive signaling networks that drive atherosclerosis. He has had continuous research funding since 2000 and programme-level funding since 2013 (>£6 million career total as PI). Paul’s research has had major impact in the inflammatory and cardiovascular communities evidenced by >9000 citations (h-index=50; 130 papers).