Dr Christopher Morris
Senior Lecturer

  • Email: c.m.morris@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 222 5827
  • Fax: +44 (0) 191 222 6442
  • Address: Medical Toxicology Centre
    Wolfson Unit of Clinical Pharmacology
    Claremont Place
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE2 4AA

Introduction

I am a member of the Medical Toxicology Centre ( www.ncl.ac.uk/mtc/ ) at the Wolfson Unit for Clinical Pharmacology and also at the Institute of Neuroscience and the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle General Hospital, where I am a member of the Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases Group. Additionally, I am a member of the Complex Genetics and Pharmacogenetics Research Group.

Roles and Responsibilities

Chair, Institute of Neuroscience GM Safety Committee
Chair, Institute for Ageing and Health GM Safety Committee
Biological Safety Advisor, Institute for Ageing and Health Research Laboratories

Qualifications

BSc(Hons)
PhD

Previous Positions

Medical Research Council Staff Scientist, MRC Neurochemical Pathology Unit, 1987-1999
Medical Reearch Council External Staff Scientist, MRC/University of Newcastle Centre Development in Clinical Brain Ageing, 2000-2005

Memberships

British Toxicology Society

Research Interests

Neurotoxicology of Late onset Neurodegenerative disease

Late onset neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia are a major cause of disability and death and affect over 500,000 people in the UK alone. The mechanisms which lead to the development of these disorders are largely unknown, though the effects of advancing age, the presence of key susceptibility genes, and environmental exposure to certain agents predispose individuals to disease development. It is these environmental agents which particularly interest us since reducing exposure to these will reduce risk of disease development. Using in vitro models, we are developing systems to understand how putative environmental agents enter the nervous system and cause damage to key neuronal populations and contribute to the development of neurodegenerative disease.
Many chemical agents such as dugs and toxins act in as yet unknown ways to produce disease or a clinical effect. Understanding how certain toxins work can provide us with indications of how that agent leads to the particular symptoms associated with chemical agent exposure. We are using proteomics and transcriptomics to identify the biological pathways and proteins that are affected by specific toxic agents.

www.ncl.ac.uk/mtc/

Other Expertise

Director, Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/iah/campus/facilities/nbtr/

Current Work

Genetics of Chemical Sensitivity

People throughout their lives are exposed to numerous different chemicals that have the potential to cause serious and even fatal disease, however it is clear that not everyone who is exposed to such chemicals develops disease. We are interested in what causes this differential sensitivity to chemical agents, and in particular we are interested in genes which regulate how a chemical agent is metabolised and removed from the body, how the body and individual cells regulate and repair damage to cells that have been affected, and how long term (epigenetic) changes are produced and may cause disease.

Genetics of Neurodegenerative Disease


One focus of our lab is to investigate how genes affect the clinical outcome
in the major neurodegenerative diseases particularly Alzheimer’s disease, Dementia
with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease. For example, some patients with Alzheimer’s
disease develop hallucinations and delusions as part of their clinical disease.
We wish to understand if various genes and common variation in those genes predisposes
to developing those symptoms.

Disease Biology and Biomarker Identification using Proteomics and Transcriptomics

In order to identify mechanisms and novel genes that predispose to different clinical symptoms we are analysing tissues from patients with specific symptoms and comparing these to patients without symptoms using methods termed Functional Genomics.

We use various techniques, including gene expression microarrays, and 2D fluorescence gel electrophoresis to analyse thousands of genes and proteins simultaneously. As part of this we are undertaking a project funded by the European Union under FP6 as part of the Network of Excellence “Diagnostic Molecular Imaging – DiMI”

http://www.dimi-net.org

DiMI is a European Network of Excellence for the development of new molecular imaging strategies aiming to improve the diagnosis and therapy of human diseases.

DiMI logo

Funding

Previous and current project grants from MRC, Alzheimer’s Research Trust, Alzheimer's Society, Research into Ageing, Commission of the European Union (EU FP6)

Undergraduate Teaching

Biomedical Sciences BMS306 Diseases of the Nervous System

Postgraduate Teaching

MRCPsych Course
MRes in Medical and Molecular Biosciences, Genetic Basis of Common (Complex) Disease PGY807