About the Editors

Editors-in-Chief

Ivano Amelio, PhD, University of Konstanz, Germany

Prof. Dr. Ivano Amelio holds the Carl Zeiss Endowed Chair for Systems Toxicology at the University of Konstanz, Germany. He received his training at the MRC Toxicology Unit of the University of Cambridge, where he was first awarded (in 2011) a Career Developmental Postdoctoral Fellowship and was later promoted (in 2015) to a Senior Scientist position. Originally, he received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2011) from the University of Rome TorVergata (Italy). In 2020 Ivano was awarded the prestigious AIRC Start-Up program, which led him to a tenure-track professorship with a joint appointment between the TOR Centre of Excellence in Rome (Italy) and University of Nottingham (UK) until 2022, when he joined the University of Konstanz.
Ivano is a member of the board of directors of the European Cell Death Organisation (ECDO) and member of a number of international advisory boards. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of Cell Death Discovery since 2018 and as member of the editorial board of Cell Death & Disease and Molecular & Cellular Oncology since 2017 and 2014 respectively.

KEYWORDS: p53, DNA damage response, hypoxia, miR, skin biology

Xin Lu, PhD, Oxford University, UK

Professor Xin Lu studied Biochemistry at Sichuan University and then Cancer Research at Peking Union Medical School in Beijing. She was awarded an IARC WHO fellowship to come to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London in 1986 and studied for her PhD under Birgit Lane. In 1993 she joined the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR), St. Mary's Branch, Imperial College as an Assistant Member and was progressively promoted to LICR Full Member and Professor at Imperial College in 2000. In 2004, she was appointed as the Director of the LICR’s UCL Branch but moved the unit to Oxford in 2007. She is an elected Member of EMBO and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Professor Lu's research is focused on understanding tumour suppression and to identify molecular switches that selectively kill cancer cells. Cancer is a disease where cells grow in the wrong place at the wrong time. Regenerative medicine involves growing cells to replace the ones that were lost or damaged. Therefore, understanding molecular mechanisms that control cell growth is vital, both to stop cancer cell growth and to grow normal cells to replace the damaged ones. Professor Lu's research team has been one of the major research groups in the world to study the regulation of the tumour suppressor function of the p53 protein whose function is lost in most human cancers. The majority of nuclear import pathways are mediated by importin-cargo interactions. Yet around 50% of all nuclear proteins do not use this pathway. Through a detailed understanding of the regulation of the ASPP proteins, Professor Lu's group has identified a code that defines RaDAR as a novel nuclear import pathway of ankyrin repeats (AR) containing proteins. AR is a structural motif found in over 250 human proteins with diverse functions. The RaDAR (RanGDP/AR) pathway is acquired by the most common familial melanoma associated CDKN2A mutation, leading to nuclear accumulation of mutant p16ink4a. It is frequently used by AR-containing transcriptional regulators, especially those regulating NF-ĸB/p53. All these suggest the existence of an Ankyrin repeats signaling and its role in infection and cancer.

KEYWORDS: apoptosis, p53, EBV, ASPP proteins, Ankyrin repeats signaling

Editorial Board

The Cell Death Discovery international Editorial Board spans the breadth of the coverage of the journal – view the full Editorial Board.