DPhil projects available

Cardiac energetics as a translational target for heart disease

Role of homoarginine in cardiac health and disease

Career

My research career started at the University of Warwick where I completed my PhD in Molecular Medicine, working on nitric oxide synthase signalling in the uterine smooth muscle. I then carried on working at Warwick on multi-disciplinary projects in the area of Molecular Endocrinology, until I took up a Research Fellow role in Cardiovascular Diabetes and Metabolism, funded by the Wellcome (2005-2009).  

I joined the Lygate/Neubauer Group at the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine in 2009 as part of the Basic Science team, funded by the British Heart Foundation. Since then, I have been involved in several projects on translational aspects of myocardial energetics.

I am a graduate student co- supervisor (2010-) and RDM mentor to junior colleagues. Other University activities include graduate student selection, peer review for several Journals, being a member of the Congregation and of the RDM Athena SWAN Environment and Culture Committee. I am celebrating my 10th year as a BHF researcher, with a series of public engagement activities in secondary schools.

Research Expertise and Interests 

A substantial part of my work since 2009 is screening for small molecules towards identification of pharmacological tools for manipulation of myocardial creatine content (BHF CRE pump priming award 2010-2013). This work has involved setting up primary assays (for example enzymatic or reporter) and identifying positive hits to be tested through secondary and counter screens. It is an ongoing project in collaboration with industry.  

A recent set of results from our group pointed towards a link between creatine and glucose metabolism in the heart of a transgenic murine model with elevated intracellular creatine. I have been interrogating this crosstalk between creatine and glucose, in both cardiac tissue and cells, with the potential of finding new tools to modulate glucose metabolism, against diabetic cardiomyopathy. At the same time, I am testing the involvement of shared molecules in the creatine and glucose signalling pathways, such as Thioredoxin interacting protein (Txnip).

ORCID 0000-0002-4665-2747