Gavin McStay (He/Him)

Senior Lecturer, Liverpool John Moores University

About Gavin McStay

My research interests focus on the roles mitochondria play in aspects of eukaryotic life, ranging from their origin, metabolism, biogenesis and role they play in cell death pathways. These are interrogated using biochemical, molecular biology, genetic and cell biology techniques. I incorporate these interests into classes I teach to provide an understanding of practical techniques and also the current literature in the field.

I studied biochemistry at the University of Leeds, with an industrial placement at Astra Charnwood, followed by a PhD at the University of Bristol, supervised by Professor Andrew Halestrap, to characterise the molecular composition of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore, with support from MitoKor. My post-doctoral training on the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis supervised by Dr Doug Green was at the La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology in San Diego, California and St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. I then was an associate research scientist working in the laboratory of Professor Alexander Tzagoloff at Columbia University in New York to study biogenesis of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

I held independent positions as assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology in New York and Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent where I continued my research and taught subjects related to biochemistry, cell biology, genetics and molecular biology. I am now a senior lecturer in biotechnology at Liverpool John Moores University. 

I am a strong supporter of scientific communications and outreach to disseminate scientific developments and knowledge to a broader audience with the goal of increasing the general support of the scientific process.

I also direct Biomed News, a free biomedical research literature discovery platform that uses machine learning.

Research Interest

Apoptosis Bioenergetics Biotechnology Cancer Cell Signalling Enzymology Evolution Gene Therapy Membranes and Membrane Proteins Metabolism Metabolomics Organelles Protein Engineering Protein Expression Protein Structure/Modifications Regulation of Gene Expression Signal Transduction Synthetic Biology Yeast

FEBS Constituent Society

UK (Biochemical Society)

Other Expertise/Interests

Grant writing Journal publishing Postgraduate training Scientific communication Scientific event organization Scientific policy Undergraduate teaching

Followed by

FEBS Network special areas

Rooms participated in:

FEBS Member Society Representatives

Recent Comments

May 10, 2025

Another wise set of words Christian. Thanks for taking the time to explain it. 

Jan 31, 2025

This is great - I'll share it with my masters class in a few weeks time. Thanks again for all your insights Christian

Dec 04, 2024

This was a great webinar with some of the leaders in this exciting field

Nov 11, 2024

Here is the link to the webinar recording for those of you that missed it. 

Link to recording

Oct 23, 2024

I look forward to chairing this and seeing people online tomorrow. 

Sep 04, 2024

The reports are started when an editor provides the seed paper(s). Terms and phrases are then used for subsequent weekly issues to identify abstracts which contain those terms. This is provided in a ranked list. The editor then select papers relevant to the topic and these are added to the machine learning for the following week. This continues as each issue is released. Everything is available on our website - all previous issues and can be shared freely. 

Details

Online Elsewhere