[2] He earned his PhD degree at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), where he studied the Wnt signaling pathway in Drosophila melanogaster with Dr Mariann Bienz.
[5] In 2007, Thompson was a visiting scientist at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna (Austria), where he worked in the laboratory of Dr Barry Dickson to perform a genome-wide in vivo RNAi screen in Drosophila.
[7][8] The Cdc42-driven positive feedback loop involves recruitment of Cdc42 complexes by Crumbs, followed by Cdc42-mediated polarisation of the cytoskeleton, including both actin filaments and microtubules, that allow transport of Crumbs-containing vesicles by the microtubule motor protein Dynein and the actin motor protein Myosin-V.[9][10] How Cdc42 polarises the cytoskeleton remains an important unsolved problem, but Cdc42 appears to act primarily via activating the kinases aPKC and Pak1 in Drosophila follicle cells.
[13] Thompson's laboratory found that cell divisions in epithelia can also be oriented by mechanical forces arising from adjacent tissues growing at different rates.
Thompson's lab showed that synthesis and enzymatic remodelling of the ECM were crucial to the shaping of Drosophila melanogaster tissues, particularly for formation of the adult fly wings, legs and halteres during metamorphosis.