Keith Matthews

Developmental cell type differentiation in African trypanosomes.

Keith Matthews undertook a Ph.D. in genetics (1990) at the University of Glasgow, working with David Barry on metacyclic variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) regulation in Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense. In 1990, he became NATO Fellow (Epidemiology and Public Health) at Yale University before moving to the University of Manchester in 1992, where he set up his own laboratory four years later. 

In 2004, he relocated to the University of Edinburgh, where he has been Professor of Parasite Biology since 2007. He has also acted as  Director of the Centre for Immunity, Infection, and Evolution (CIIE). 

portrait photo of Keith Matthews
Keith Matthews

Awards and honours

  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE)  2014,
  • Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) 2018
  • Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) 2020.
  • British Society for Parasitology C. A. Wright medal (2015)
  • Sanofi-Pasteur international award in Infectious disease research
  • American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Alice and C. C. Wang award in molecular parasitology (2023). 

Keith is currently a Wellcome Trust Investigator, leading a research programme focused on understanding environmental sensing and cell-cell communication in African trypanosomes.

Kevin Kidambasi Ogola (Kenya), Stephen Larcombe (UK) (joint with Liam Morrison), Kirsty McWilliam (UK), Ruth Shelton (UK), Balazs Szöőr (Hungary), Frank Venter (South Africa), and Helen Yull (UK; lab manager)


African trypanosomes are evolutionarily ancient eukaryotic parasites responsible for significant human and animal disease in sub Saharan Africa. They are transmitted between mammalian hosts by tsetse flies. In the mammalian bloodstream trypanosomes prepare for transmission by signalling to each other in a form of quorum sensing to ensure a coordinated population response to accumulating parasite numbers, this also prolonging host survival. The quorum sensing process drives their development to cell cycle arrested ‘stumpy forms’ that are adapted for transmission to tsetse flies. 

Our lab is focused on dissecting the regulation and signalling events that prepare the parasite for transmission and also on the developmental processes that allow them to establish in the tsetse vector. 

Our research is focused on parasite biology, using molecular, cellular, genomic and parasitology focussed approaches to understand how the trypanosome controls fundamental developmental processes, is transmitted between mammalian hosts and evolves to ensure its effective spread.


Infection dynamics of Africna trypanosome sin their mammalian host.
Infection dynamics of Africna trypanosomes in their mammalian host.

Oldrieve GR, Venter F, Cayla M, Verney M, Hébert L, Geerts M, Van Reet N, Matthews KR (2024). Mechanisms of life cycle simplification in African trypanosomes. Nat Commun.Dec 2;15(1):10485. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54555-w.PMID: 39622840

Stephen D. Larcombe, Emma M Briggs, Nick Savill, Balazs Szöőr and Keith R Matthews (2023). The developmental hierarchy and scarcity of replicative slender trypanosomes in blood challenges their role in infection maintenance. Proc Natl Acad Sci (USA) 120 (42) e2306848120. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2306848120.

Keith R Matthews. Trypanosome signaling - Quorum sensing (2021). Annual Review of Microbiology 75: 495-514. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-micro-020321-115246.

Federico Rojas, Eleanor Silvester , Julie Young , Rachel Milne, Mabel Tettey, Douglas R. Houston, Malcolm D. Walkinshaw, Irene Pérez-Pi , Manfred Auer, Helen Denton, Terry K. Smith, Joanne Thompson, Keith R. Matthews (2019) Oligopeptide Signaling through TbGPR89 Drives Trypanosome Quorum Sensing Cell 176, 1-12

Binny M. Mony*; Paula MacGregor*; Alasdair Ivens, Federico Rojas, Andrew Cowton, Julie Young, David Horn and Keith R. Matthews(2014) Genome wide dissection of the quorum sensing signalling pathway in Trypanosoma brucei Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature12864


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