Research focus
The overall aim of my research is to understand the mechanisms through which the brain regulates our body’s blood glucose levels and assess the therapeutic potential of brain-specific manipulations for the treatment of metabolic disorders such as diabetes.
Background and experience
I became interested in how the brain regulates physiological processes (and how it goes wrong!) during my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science at Queen’s University Belfast when I was accepted onto the International Undergraduate Research Programme at the University of Reno Nevada School of Medicine and spent a year in the lab of Prof. Yumei Feng studying mechanisms underpinning neurogenic hypertension. Following the completion of my undergraduate degree in 2017, I joined the IMS-MRL on the Wellcome Trust PhD Programme (1+3) in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease and obtained my PhD in the Blouet lab in 2022. My PhD research focussed on the regulation and function of oligodendrocyte plasticity in a brain region known as the median eminence using in vivo models and molecular biology techniques.
Working at the IMS-MRL
I investigate how discrete manipulations of hypothalamic neurocircuitry affect metabolism by performing functional assessments in behaving rodents. Coupled with downstream histological, cellular, and molecular analyses of rodent tissues, this multidisciplinary approach allows me to characterise the contribution of specific cell types or pathways to the central regulation of energy balance and glucose homeostasis.
Awards
CNS 2022: New Horizons Poster Prize (Annual Cambridge Neuroscience Conference, 2022)
BSN-SNE Poster Prize (4th BSN-SNE joint meeting of Neuroendocrinology, 2021)
