Massachusetts General Hospital

Post-Doc, Cardiovascular Research Center

Other Affiliations: Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital
University of Cambridge, Biochemistry

King's College-Cambridge

Thesis Title: PhD: The Metabolic Effect of PPAR delta activation

About

I am currently a Leducq Foundation funded research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Gerszten. My research encompasses metabolic and metabolomic analysis of animal models and clinical studies of insulin resistance, type II diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease.


Formerly I was a BBSRC funded Ph.D student with a CASE award from GlaxoSmithKline plc conducting research in the laboratory group of Dr. Julian L. Griffin in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK.



Research and Interests


My research whilst in the laboratory of Dr. Julian Griffin concentrated on areas of Type II Diabetes Mellitus, the Metabolic Syndrome, Dyslipidaemia and Obesity. The primary focus was held on the nuclear receptors, the Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptors (PPARs) delta and gamma, with the aim of elucidating the influence of these receptors over the control of metabolism, both systemically and in specific tissue systems.


A Metabolomics/Metabonomics/Lipidomics approach was used to analyse the physiological effects of PPAR activation in biofluids, tissue extracts and mammalian cell culture systems.  Analysis utilised a large array of chemometric techniques including 1H and 13C-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, Direct Infusion-Mass Spectrometry and Gas Chromatography-Flame Ionisation Detection. Statistical analysis of the data was carried out with pattern recognition techniques and multivariate statistical interpretation.  Complementary to the metabolomics methods my research also employed Stable Isotope Labelling, Cell Biology and Culture and Respirometry using in situ studies of cells in an oxygen electrode.

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