Research
Cardio-oncology
Drug-induced cardiac damage is a known side-effect of many traditional and newer cancer treatments. This has led to the development of cardio-oncology, a field dedicated to minimising and managing the toxic side effects of cancer drugs on the heart. My group has optimised the development of iPSC-derived cardiac cells from PBMCs from patients who have received cancer drugs so that we can investigate the structural and functional differences in cardiomyocytes between patients who display drug-induced cardiotoxicity and those who show no cardiovascular damage.
Our research aims to understand, predict, and reduce the toxic effect caused by multiple cancer medications including anthracyclines, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies. These different classes of drugs are known to cause both acute and chronic damage to the heart that can manifest as a reduction in left ventricle ejection fraction, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, and heart failure.
Drug-Induced Liver Injury
Often, drugs cause toxicity not because of the parent compound but because of a toxic metabolite formed in the liver. As such we are interested in the development of liver models to not only investigate the toxicity in the liver but to also use these models to generate metabolites that may damage the heart. As such we have developed a 3D liver spheroid model to understand drug-induced liver toxicity. We have further optimised a protocol to differentiate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into hepatocytes.
Research grants
Bench fees - Fatimah Khalifah Mohammed Alsulaiman - (201607962)
ROYAL EMBASSY OF SAUDI ARABIA CULTURAL BUREAU IN LONDON (UK)
January 2024 - January 2028
Liverpool array tomography: revitalising and strengthening the capabilities of a national hub for biomedical volume EM research (Liverpool AT: vEM)
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
July 2024 - February 2025
Maestro Pro multiwell microelectrode array for the University of Liverpool electrophysiology suite: Cell physiology meets high throughput.
BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
July 2023 - June 2024
PhD fees Fada Alanzani 201438408
ROYAL EMBASSY OF SAUDI ARABIA CULTURAL BUREAU IN LONDON (UK)
November 2019 - October 2022
Development and mathematical modelling of Multicell-Bioreactors for in vitro to in vivo extrapolation of systemic chemical toxicity
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE REP, REF AND RED OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH (NC3RS)
September 2012 - August 2016
Assessing off-target receptor binding by in vitro profiling and mathematic modelling
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE REP, REF AND RED OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH (NC3RS)
January 2015 - June 2015