He is known for demonstrating that cells can spread in the body[1][2] and find their way through mazes[3][4][5] by creating gradients of chemoattractants.
Insall performed his PhD work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, working with developmental biologist Rob Kay, and his post-doctoral training with Peter Devreotes at Johns Hopkins University.
[7] With Laura Machesky, he identified an important signaling pathway that controls the behavior of the actin cytoskeleton.
[10] He showed that the spread of cancer cells in melanoma is driven by this mechanism,[1][2] and that cells migrating through a maze can tell the difference between short arms of the maze and long arms because the chemoattractant in a short arm is degraded more rapidly, allowing them to avoid getting lost.
His wife, Laura Machesky, FRSE, FMedSci is the Dunn Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge.