Contact
Biography
Rebecca completed her undergraduate in Biomedical Sciences at Keele University. For her undergraduate research project, she spent 3 months at Usains Biomics laboratory at Universiti Sains Malaysia where she developed immunoassays for the detection of flunixin, an anti-inflammatory drug. Following this, Rebecca completed her Masters in Bioscience Research Training where she undertook a research project at Krefting Research Centre (KRC), University of Gothenburg, Sweden. During her time at KRC, Rebecca investigated the role of microRNA-155 in the recruitment of mast cells in in vitro and in vivo models of allergic inflammation.
Upon completing her Masters, Rebecca worked as a trainee biomedical scientist in histopathology until September 2017 when she joined the Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Therapeutics and Nanomedicines. Her first training project is focused on monitoring intracellular antibiotic release from liposomes via rapamycin-induced dimerization.
Research Summary
Monitoring intracellular antibiotic release from liposomes via rapamycin-induced dimerisation.
Supervisors: Dr Alan Huett (School of life Sciences), Dr Rosa Catania (EPSRC Doctoral Fellow), Dr Giuseppe Mantovani, Dr Weng Chan, and Dr Snow Stolnik (School of Pharmacy).
The majority of drug therapies are administered systemically even when their targets are localised. This results in high levels of side effects in non-target tissues, and requires increased doses to maintain drug levels within the therapeutic range. Various drug carriers can be used to target drugs to a specific site. For instance, liposomal drug delivery which have had significant advancements due to their biocompatibility, and potential high drug encapsulation and loading. However, the internalisation of liposomes by cells is poorly characterised, therefore, the kinetics of drug release and delivery dosage remains undetermined. The aim of this project is to create and test a real-time drug release reporter system in living cells, this will be achieved by using rapamycin-induced dimerization of fluorescent protein fusions as rapamycin is released from liposomes delivered to the cells.