Profile

As an immuno-pharmacologist my role is to look at the effects of naturally occurring compounds released by the human body and to look at how they affect your immune system. Sometimes, your immune system can play a major role in preventing the development of Osteoarthritis, and what these drugs do is help the immune system achieve this. The drugs I use are produced naturally in the human body, and pharmacologists have been able to make synthetic versions of these compounds, which I can test to see how well they work in an Osteoarthritic model; will they give chondrocytes superpowers to rebuild damaged cartilage? I also like to look at the effect of these drugs at a molecular level. So, I look at how they can switch certain genes on or off.

As soon as I wake up I check my emails and respond to the urgent ones first. As I am a proactive person, I apply for grants to fund my research, and competitions to host outreach events at University, so, I am keen to check my emails for updates! I then head off to the laboratory! I usually get to the laboratory by 8am because I have a lot of experiments and meetings to get through on a daily basis. I usually grab my lunch in the morning because I don’t  have time to go out in the afternoon. On my way to work I walk past the BT Tower every morning because my building is right next to it. As soon as I get to the laboratory I check on my cartilage cells (chondrocytes) to see how they are. Sometimes I need to passage them (make more of them), or sometimes I need to get on with research; take a plate of pre-prepared cells (cells that were added into the plates 24hrs ago) and give them some drugs to see how they will react to the drug (this is the easy part). Once the reaction ends, I add some dyes into the cells to check if their dead or alive, usually after 3hrs of waiting the colour changes. During the 3hrs wait, I am usually attending meetings on University policy or updating my supervisors on my research. After the meetings I get back into the laboratory to set up even more experiments. If I can squeeze an hour lunch break I usually walk down to Oxford Street (its only 5 minutes away), if not, it means I have to plan for the lecture I will deliver in the afternoon usually on Bioinformatics or Biochemistry, or help run a practical in Medical Immunology, which I really enjoy. I usually leave by 6:30pm on a good day, but there are days I am there until 10:00pm. Sometimes it can get tiring working long hours but I enjoy my typical days because I get to meet really cool people.