Research
I am currently employed on a Teaching and Scholarship (T&S) contract and plan to undertake some Pedagogical / Andragogical Research in the near future.
Previous research project were on the "Biology of dying" and the "Molecular properties of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus".
I have interests in a range of topic, including but exhaustively: cancer biology, cancer treatments, particularly immunotherapy for cancer and the biology of dying.
Pedagogical / Androgogical Research
I am currently employed on a Teaching and Scholarship (T&S) contract and plan to undertake some Pedagogical / Andragogical Research.
The Biology of Dying
From January 2018 - April 2020, I was employed as a Postdoctoral Research Associate funded by a Wellcome Trust seed award in science.
I worked alongside palliative care consultant Dr. Seamus Coyle (Honorary Clinical Fellow), Prof. Chris Probert and Prof. Mark Boyd.
We believe there is a physiological process to dying. Recognising when someone is in the last weeks or days of life is difficult. No diagnostic test is available and little is known about how people die from disease. This knowledge is crucial for providing the best care possible. Previous work had established it was feasible to collect urine samples from patients in the last weeks and days of life. During my time on the project, the pilot study identified volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from urine, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis as potential prognosticators for dying patients with advanced cancer. We created a model with these VOCs to predict the dying process. This work has the potential to have a profound impact on the understanding of human biology and on patient care.
I maintain an active interest in this topic.
I published some optimisation work from this project in September 2020, entitled: "Optimisation of Urine Sample Preparation for Headspace-Solid Phase Microextraction Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry: Altering Sample pH, Sulphuric Acid Concentration and Phase Ratio" .
In January 2023, I published significant findings in the article: "GC-MS Techniques Investigating Potential Biomarkers of Dying in the Last Weeks with Lung Cancer".
In addition to VOCs, I began investigating metabolites in urine of patients dying with lung cancer using LC-MS. We have a pre-print of our LC-MS data available here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4453379
Molecular properties of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in rheumatoid arthritis
From June 2016 - November 2017, I was employed as a Postdoctoral Research Associate funded by a Wellcome Trust seed award in science awarded to Dr. Helen Wright.
This project sought to investigate the proteins contained in Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in auto-immune diseases, systemic lupus erythematosis (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). NETs are chromatin structures covered in anti-microbial proteins that are released by neutrophils in response to infection. The exposure of proteins and DNA within NETs may also trigger auto-immune responses, e.g. in SLE or RA, where auto-antibodies to double-stranded DNA (SLE) and citrullinated proteins (RA) may contribute to disease pathology. This work aimed to develop comprehensive, quantitative analysis of the proteins decorating SLE and RA NETs using quantitative proteomics and immunofluorescence (IF).
I published the main findings from these 18 months in a paper in March 2019 - in a paper entitled "Caught in a Trap? Proteomic analysis of neutrophil extracellular traps in rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus"
I, along with colleague Dr. Angela Hackett made this video about research in the neutrophil lab:
At IACD: https://youtu.be/n2nojadUN88
At IIB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bad7RUia5o