Elizabeth Patton

Liz Patton is a Professor and MRC Programme Leader Scientist at the MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, UK. Liz received a BSc Honours degree from King’s College at Dalhousie University, and a PhD from the University of Toronto, working with Mike Tyers to discover how E3 ubiquitin ligases control cell division.

Following this, Liz received a Human Frontier Science Programme Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Len Zon at Harvard Medical School, where she developed a zebrafish BRAF model for melanoma. Her lab uses chemical genetic approaches in zebrafish to investigate gene-drug interactions in melanocyte development and in melanoma. Dr Patton is an Executive Editor at Disease Models and Mechanisms (Company of Biologists), and Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research (Wiley).

Dr Patton was the founding President of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society (2013-2015) and currently serves as a Board member and Treasurer, and is an elected member of the Young Academy of Scotland at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Society for Melanoma Research Steering Committee.

Dr. Patton’s research is funded by the Medical Research Council, the European Research Council, and a L’Oréal Paris USA–MRA Team Science Award for Women in Scientific Research.