About
I am a cell biologist who specialises in using live cell microscopy to study how receptors transmit signals, or information, throughout the cell.
I undertook my PhD at the University of Sydney, followed by a Postdoctoral position at the University of New South Wales investigating T cell receptors, a Postdoctoral position at the University of Otago investigating how lipoprotein uptake is regulated, and am now back at the University of New South Wales as a Postdoctoral Fellow investigating how receptors are regulated inside the cell. At every stage of my career, I have developed imaging techniques to investigate how receptors are moved into and around cells at the nanoscale level using live cell microscopic imaging.
Every project I have worked on has looked at aspects of how receptors are taken up into a cell and how this controls what the receptor does. The best way to look at this is using live cell imaging- we can see what happens to a receptor from the moment a ligand (for example, serotonin) binds and follow what happens.
My interest in serotonin receptors started with the project I was working on at the University of Otago. We found that antidepressants and serotonin changed how a common form of cholesterol that is important in heart disease was taken up into liver cells. I found it fascinating that serotonin regulated this process, which got me reading and thinking about serotonin receptors and has led me to the project I'm working on now.
The more I read about serotonin receptors, the more I realised there was so much still to learn about how they are regulated by cell uptake mechanisms. And the more I read about psychedelics, the more I realised that we need to understand how they act on serotonin receptors at a cellular level so we properly understand how they act. This has led to the project we've proposed here, which I hope will help lead us to create new antidepressants based on psychedelic compounds.
Joined
May 2023
