NAmur Research Institute for LIfe Sciences
Alison Forrester
ERES Modulation and Homeostasis
Studying the modulation of the early secretory pathway, the effects on cellular homeostasis, and identifying new compounds that modulate this process to develop a therapeutic approach
Prof. Alison Forrester PhD
UNamur, Department of biology, Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology (URBC), HomER team
Research portal UNamur | ORCID | ResearchGate | LinkedIn
Expertise and research interests
Alison Forrester did her BSc in Pharmacology and PhD in Toxicology and Dermatology at the University of Newcastle, UK. Interested in autophagy and disease formation, she took a Postdoc position in Carmine Settembre’s lab at the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) in Naples, Italy, where she studied the role of autophagy and ER-phagy in protein trafficking, then to Ludger Johannes’ lab at the Institute Curie in Paris, France, where she 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.
Her team HoMER (Homeostasis and Modulation of ERES)’s work at the University of Namur is based on the latter project: they 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. They use light microscopy to study protein trafficking and the secretory pathway, specialising in confocal and live cell microscopy, including lattice light sheet microscopy.
They 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.
Group members
Postdoc researcher: Lucie Caramelle
PhD student: Inès de Fays
Technician: Lorena Ricci
Selected publications
Ewan MacDonald, Alison Forrester, Cesar A. Valades-Cruz, Thomas D. Madsen, Joseph H. R. Hetmanski, Estelle Dransart, Yeap Ng, Rashmi Godbole, Ananthan Akhil Shp, Ludovic Leconte, Valérie Chambon, Debarpan Ghosh, Alexis Pinet, Dhiraj Bhatia, Bérangère Lombard, Damarys Loew, Martin R. Larsen, Hakon Leffler, Dirk J. Lefeber, Henrik Clausen, Anne Blangy, Patrick Caswell, Massiullah Shafaq-Zadah, Satyajit Mayor, Roberto Weigert, Christian Wunder & Ludger Johannes. Growth factor-triggered de-sialylation controls glycolipid-lectin-driven endocytosis. Nature Cell Biology. 2025 Feb.
Farhan H, Raote I, Campelo F, Ge L, Hirschberg K, Forrester A, Zanetti G, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Pastor-Pareja JC, Perez F, Saito K, Malhotra V. Towards a unified framework for the function of endoplasmic reticulum exit sites. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2025 Dec;26(12):957-969.
Robinson CM, Duggan A, Forrester A. ER exit in physiology and disease. Front Mol Biosci. 2024 Jan 18;11:1352970.
Forrester A, Rathjen SJ, Daniela Garcia-Castillo M, Bachert C, Couhert A, Tepshi L, Pichard S, Martinez J, Munier M, Sierocki R, Renard HF, Augusto Valades-Cruz C, Dingli F, Loew D, Lamaze C, Cintrat JC, Linstedt AD, Gillet D, Barbier J, Johannes L. Functional dissection of the retrograde Shiga toxin trafficking inhibitor Retro-2. Nat Chem Biol. 2020 Mar;16(3):327-336.
Forrester A, De Leonibus C, Grumati P, Fasana E, Piemontese M, Staiano L, Fregno I, Raimondi A, Marazza A, Bruno G, Iavazzo M, Intartaglia D, Seczynska M, van Anken E, Conte I, De Matteis MA, Dikic I, Molinari M, Settembre C. A selective ER-phagy exerts procollagen quality control via a Calnexin-FAM134B complex. EMBO J. 2019 Jan 15;38(2):e99847.
