Prof Payam Gammage

Mitochondrial Oncogenetics

I trained in mitochondrial genetics, metabolism and genome engineering at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge from 2010-2019 in the lab of Michal Minczuk. My interest in cancer metabolism and biology was formed through collaboration and mentorship from Christian Frezza (then MRC Cancer Unit, Cambridge), eventually leading me to establish the Mitochondrial Oncogenetics lab at the CRUK Scotland Institute in August 2019. In our lab we aim to better understand the role of mitochondrial genetics in cancer metabolism and biology, supported by core funding from CRUK. Our lab has grown with subsequent awards from the European Research Council and the National Cancer Institute, NIH (USA), allowing us to move into further exciting areas of mitochondrial cancer biology. I am an EMBO Young Investigator, member of the Association of ERC Grantees, member of the Biochemical Society and serve on the editorial board of the Royal Society Open Science. Outside the lab I’m mostly found trying to keep up with my young daughter around the Scottish countryside and occasionally embarrassing myself in jazz/rock bands.

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Biography

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Recent Publications

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Biography

Education and qualifications

2015: PhD, Biochemistry, University of Cambridge
2011: MSc, Neuroscience, University College London

Appointments

2024–present: Professor of Mitochondrial Biology, School of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow
2019–present: Junior Group Leader, Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute
2020–2024: Senior Lecturer, School of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow
2015–2019: Career Development Fellow, MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit
2014–2015: Research Associate, MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit

Awards and fellowships

2024–2027: EMBO Young Investigator
2022: National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, USA, MERIT Award (R37)
2021: ERC Starting Grant

Current committee memberships

2020–present: The Royal Society, UK, Open Science – Editorial Board

Funding

EPSRC, NIH, EMBO, Genetics Society

Recent Publications

2026

MacVicar T, Greaves LC, Gammage PA, Tait SWG, Fisher-Wellman KH, Freedman G. Cancer as a window into mitochondrial biology. Cell Metab. 2026(6):1085-1088.

2025

Boscenco S, Tait-Mulder J, Kim M, Tang C, Park T, McNulty F, Lilla S, Zanivan S, Huerta-Uribe A, Nalbant B, Zucker M, Sumpton D, Monteuuis G, Jackson CB, Wei W, Chinnery PF, Chaligne R, Lareau CA, Reznik E, Gammage PA. Functionally dominant hotspot mutations of mitochondrial ribosomal RNA genes in cancer. Nature Genetics. 2025.

Nash PA, Turner KM, Powell CA, Van Haute L, Silva-Pinheiro P, Bubeck F, Wiedtke E, Marques E, Ryan DG, Grimm D, Gammage PA, Minczuk M. Clinically translatable mitochondrial gene therapy in muscle using tandem mtZFN architecture. EMBO Mol Med. 2025.

Novak J, Nahacka Z, Oliveira GL, Brisudova P, Dubisova M, Dvorakova S, Miklovicova S, Dalecka M, Puttrich V, Grycova L, Magalhaes-Novais S, Correia CM, Levoux J, Stepanek L, Prochazka J, Svec D, Reguera DP, Lopez-Domenech G, Zobalova R, Sedlacek R, Terp MG, Gammage PA, Lansky Z, Kittler J, Oliveira PJ, Ditzel HJ, Berridge MV, Rodriguez AM, Boukalova S, Rohlena J, Neuzil J. The adaptor protein Miro1 modulates horizontal transfer of mitochondria in mouse melanoma models. Cell Rep. 2025;44(1):115154.

Samarakoon Y, Yelland T, Garcia-Gonzalez E, da Silva Justo Junior A, Mahmood M, Manoharan A, Patterson S, Serafin V, Gammage PA, Marmiroli S, Halsey C, Ismail S, Roberts EW. UNC119 regulates T-cell receptor signalling in primary T cells and T acute lymphocytic leukaemia. Life Sci Alliance. 2025;8(3).

2024

Kim M, Gorelick AN, Vàzquez-García I, Williams MJ, Salehi S, Shi H, Weiner AC, Ceglia N, Funnell T, Park T, Boscenco S, O’Flanagan CH, Jiang H, Grewal D, Tang C, Rusk N, Gammage PA, McPherson A, Aparicio S, Shah SP, Reznik E. Single-cell mtDNA dynamics in tumors is driven by coregulation of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. Nature Genetics. 2024.

Mahmood M, Liu EM, Shergold AL, Tolla E, Tait-Mulder J, Huerta-Uribe A, Shokry E, Young AL, Lilla S, Kim M, Park T, Boscenco S, Manchon JL, Rodríguez-Antona C, Walters RC, Springett RJ, Blaza JN, Mitchell L, Blyth K, Zanivan S, Sumpton D, Roberts EW, Reznik E, Gammage PA. Mitochondrial DNA mutations drive aerobic glycolysis to enhance checkpoint blockade response in melanoma. Nat Cancer. 2024.

2023

Mahmood M, Liu EM, Shergold AL, Tolla E, Tait-Mulder J, Uribe AH, Shokry E, Young AL, Lilla S, Kim M, Park T, Manchon JL, Rodriguez-Antona C, Walters RC, Springett RJ, Blaza JN, Zanivan S, Sumpton DA, Roberts EW, Reznik E, Gammage PA. Tumour mitochondrial DNA mutations drive aerobic glycolysis to enhance checkpoint blockade. bioRxiv. 2023;Volume:2023.2003.2021.533091.

Shaw AM, Gammage PA. Coupling Differential Centrifugation with Exonuclease Treatment and Size Exclusion Chromatography (DIFSEC) for Purification of mtDNA from Mammalian Cells. Methods Mol Biol. 2023;2615:31-40.

2022

Ganly I, Liu EM, Kuo F, Makarov V, Dong Y, Park J, Gong Y, Gorelick AN, Knauf JA, Benedetti E, Tait-Mulder J, Morris LGT, Fagin JA, Intelkofer AM, Krumsiek J, Gammage P, Ghossein R, Xu B, Chan TA, Reznik E. Mitonuclear genotype remodels the metabolic and microenvironmental landscape of Hürthle cell carcinoma. Sci Adv. 2022;8(25):eabn9699.

Kim M, Mahmood M, Reznik E, Gammage PA. Mitochondrial DNA is a major source of driver mutations in cancer. Trends in Cancer. 2022;8:1046-1059

2021

Gorelick AN, Kim M, Chatila WK, La K, Hakimi AA, Berger MF, Taylor BS, Gammage PA, Reznik E. Respiratory complex and tissue lineage drive recurrent mutations in tumour mtDNA. Nat Metab. 2021; 3:558–570

See the following articles for insights into this study: Mutations in overlooked DNA could have profound impact on bowel cancer survival and Mitochondrial DNA in cancer: small genome, big impact

Rabas N, Palmer S, Mitchell L, Ismail S, Gohlke A, Riley JS, Tait SWG, Gammage P, Soares LL, Macpherson IR, Norman JC. PINK1 drives production of mtDNA-containing extracellular vesicles to promote invasiveness. J Cell Biol. 2021;220.

2020

Bacman SR, Gammage PA, Minczuk M, Moraes CT. Manipulation of mitochondrial genes and mtDNA heteroplasmy. Methods in cell biology. 2020;155:441-487.

Jackson CB, Turnbull DM, Minczuk M, Gammage PA. Therapeutic Manipulation of mtDNA Heteroplasmy: A Shifting Perspective. Trends in Molecular Medicine. 2020; 26: 698-709

Pinheiro P, A. Gammage P, Minczuk M. Chapter 19 – Mitochondrially targeted zinc finger nucleases. In: Gasparre G, Porcelli AM, eds. The Human Mitochondrial Genome. Academic Press; 2020:499-514.

2019

Andreazza S, Samstag CL, Sanchez-Martinez A, Fernandez-Vizarra E, Gomez-Duran A, Lee JJ, Tufi R, Hipp MJ, Schmidt EK, Nicholls TJ, Gammage PA, Chinnery PF, Minczuk M, Pallanck LJ, Kennedy SR, Whitworth AJ. Mitochondrially-targeted APOBEC1 is a potent mtDNA mutator affecting mitochondrial function and organismal fitness in Drosophila. Nature communications. 2019;10:3280.

Gammage PA, Frezza C. Mitochondrial DNA: the overlooked oncogenome? BMC biology. 2019;17:53. F1000Prime Recommended

Hoitzing H, Gammage PA, Haute LV, Minczuk M, Johnston IG, Jones NS. Energetic costs of cellular and therapeutic control of stochastic mitochondrial DNA populations. PLoS computational biology. 2019;15:e1007023.

2018

Gammage PA, Minczuk M. Enhanced Manipulation of Human Mitochondrial DNA Heteroplasmy In Vitro Using Tunable mtZFN Technology. Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, NJ). 2018;1867:43-56.

Gammage PA, Moraes CT, Minczuk M. Mitochondrial Genome Engineering: The Revolution May Not Be CRISPR-Ized. Trends in genetics : TIG. 2018;34:101-110.

Gammage PA, Viscomi C, Simard ML, Costa ASH, Gaude E, Powell CA, Van Haute L, McCann BJ, Rebelo-Guiomar P, Cerutti R, Zhang L, Rebar EJ, Zeviani M, Frezza C, Stewart JB, Minczuk M. Genome editing in mitochondria corrects a pathogenic mtDNA mutation in vivo. Nature medicine. 2018;24:1691-1695.

Gaude E, Schmidt C, Gammage PA, Dugourd A, Blacker T, Chew SP, Saez-Rodriguez J, O’Neill JS, Szabadkai G, Minczuk M, Frezza C. NADH Shuttling Couples Cytosolic Reductive Carboxylation of Glutamine with Glycolysis in Cells with Mitochondrial Dysfunction. Molecular cell. 2018;69:581-593.e587

Kullar PJ, Gomez-Duran A, Gammage PA, Garone C, Minczuk M, Golder Z, Wilson J, Montoya J, Hakli S, Karppa M, Horvath R, Majamaa K, Chinnery PF. Heterozygous SSBP1 start loss mutation co-segregates with hearing loss and the m.1555A>G mtDNA variant in a large multigenerational family. Brain : a journal of neurology. 2018;141:55-62

McCann BJ, Cox A, Gammage PA, Stewart JB, Zernicka-Goetz M, Minczuk M. Delivery of mtZFNs into Early Mouse Embryos. Methods in molecular biology. 2018;1867:215-228.

Peeva V, Blei D, Trombly G, Corsi S, Szukszto MJ, Rebelo-Guiomar P, Gammage PA, Kudin AP, Becker C, Altmuller J, Minczuk M, Zsurka G, Kunz WS. Linear mitochondrial DNA is rapidly degraded by components of the replication machinery. Nature communications. 2018;9:1727.

2016

Gammage PA, Gaude E, Van Haute L, Rebelo-Guiomar P, Jackson CB, Rorbach J, Pekalski ML, Robinson AJ, Charpentier M, Concordet JP, Frezza C, Minczuk M. Near-complete elimination of mutant mtDNA by iterative or dynamic dose-controlled treatment with mtZFNs. Nucleic acids research. 2016;44:7804-7816.

Gammage PA, Van Haute L, Minczuk M. Engineered mtZFNs for Manipulation of Human Mitochondrial DNA Heteroplasmy. Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, NJ). 2016;1351:145-162.