I have a long standing interest in understanding how cells function, the role of exosomes and what happens in human diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. My role includes managing the Life Sciences Industry Liaison Lab based at Discovery Park, in Sandwich.
I have been always passionate and dedicated to science from an early age. My passion for research began during my undergraduate studies were I undertook a 1-year research training at Boehringer Mannheim (Roche Diagnostics) at Penzberg in Bavaria. My research project was focused on human gene therapy and understanding the processes to maximize gene delivery. My studies took me to Manchester where I undertook my PhD working between academia and industry (the best of both worlds) on how proteins are made in the cell and teasing out the pathway of how proteins are degraded. A pathway often affected in many human diseases. Ironically I undertook a 6-month training period with Pfizer at Sandwich, the same place were I work today. After completing my PhD, I moved to the laboratory of Prof. Stephen High as a post-doc and continued my fascination of N-glycosylation and protein folding at the ER. During this time, I was able to train at the ZMBH in Heidelberg. My interest in human diseases developed and I took up an Assistant Professor position between the University of Limoges and Limoges Hospital. Later, I had the opportunity to lead a small team on the first chair of excellence on Lung cancer were I established the first biobank at Limoges and developed my love of all things small (EVs).
My ambition is to solve fundamental problems related to human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and lung cancer