Profile

I live in Leicester with my family. In my spare time, I like to explore new cities with my boyfriend and learn new things. I also love to travel, my latest adventure being Thailand where I snorkelled around lagoons, learnt to cook tasty Asian food, and washed/fed elephants! I enjoy exercising and regularly visit the gym.

I work with drugs that are used to treat a selection of human diseases (focusing on those that affect the brain), and try to figure out how they cause side-effects in patients. To do this, I focus on the mitochondria- tiny ‘power-houses’ found within most cells of the body. These amazing structures provide us with the energy that we need to live. My research investigates whether some drugs produce toxic effects in patients because they inadvertently damage these fascinating energy-making centres.  The aim of my work is to help make safer medicines and improve the lives of patients worldwide – a goal that has always motivated me to work in the field of biomedical research.

I inject brain cells grown in a dish with my drugs of interest. I then measure how much energy the mitochondria in these cells can produce. I do this by adding a glowing liquid taken from fireflies to my cells. The more energy that is made, the more the cells glow. I then compare this between cells with no drug vs. cells given drugs. I also measure how quickly these mitochondria can make energy using a remarkable machine called a seahorse analyser (not related to the underwater animals!). I then add my drugs of interest to fly food, to see if they cause have bad reactions in fruit flies (for example reducing the ability of flies to climb). A better understanding of how these drugs can damage mitochondria will lead to improved awareness of how brain cells are injured during toxic drug reactions.

I would like to use the money to fund activities towards school visits. These would be aimed at teaching students why mitochondria are so important. I would create a variety of games/activities to demonstrate how the mitochondria make energy, and the bad effects that can happen when drugs disrupt energy production by the mitochondria. I would also bring in activities to show how the brain works, and what happens to the brain when drugs disrupt mitochondria function (or in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s).