Bill Willmore

Biography

Bill Willmore Professor, Director of the Institute of Biochemistry Degrees: B.Sc. (Guelph), Ph.D. (Carleton)

Research Interest

My research examines alteration of protein structure and function by oxygen, in particular, the lack of such alteration under low oxygen (or hypoxic) conditions. Such conditions are commonly encountered by humans at high altitudes, during development, and in clinical conditions such as sleep apnea, hypertension, ischemic (or the cutting off of blood flow) heart disease, acute myocardial infarction, cardiac arrest, cerebrovascular disease (such as stroke), and neurocognitive deficits. Systemic or localized hypoxia affects metabolic pathways, induces angiogenesis (or the formation of new blood vessels), and affects inflammatory responses. Many of the factors that are involved in hypoxia survival are also found to be upregulated in most human tumors. As well as disease, ischemia-associated hypoxia plays a role in tissue damage during organ transplantation as well as preservation. Using mammalian cell lines (human, monkey, rat, etc.) as the model system and a proteomic approach, we examine changes in protein expression, function and stability under varying oxygen conditions.