Sean Munro studies the secretory pathways that cells use to transport their internal cargo of proteins and nutrients, packaged as tiny vesicles, between specific organelles or on to other cells. In particular, he focuses on how the Golgi apparatus — the ‘post office’ of the cell — receives and recognises these parcels, then delivers them to their correct destination.
His work, which uses mammalian and yeast cells, has identified several mechanisms by which organelle-specific proteins target these cellular cargoes to their destination. Sean’s recent work has also identified a variety of coiled, protein-based tentacles in the Golgi that selectively capture incoming vesicles from different points of origin in the cell.
In addition to being a Fellow of the Royal Society, Sean was elected as a Member of EMBO, the European Molecular Biology Organization in 1997 and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012.
Professional position
- Staff Scientist, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Subject groups
- Biochemistry and molecular cell biology
Cell biology (incl molecular cell biology)
