Research

I completed my Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from North South University, BD followed by a MSc in Pharmacology from University of Oxford, UK. I then served as a Lecturer at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences for three years at North South University, BD. I started my PhD at the Department of Physiology, Development & Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, funded by IsDB-Cambridge International Trust scholarship. My thesis focused on trying to understand the structural and functional relationship of the human voltage-gated sodium ion channel subtypes Nav1.5 and Nav1.7.

Vaccine for Universal Protection Against Influenza Virus

The aim of our research is to develop a novel “universal flu vaccine” that protects against a wide range of influenza virus strains and is not readily evaded by virus antigenic evolution. Our strategy is to identify host cell surface proteins altered during influenza infections, which could potentially be recognised as new infection-specific antigens that can be targeted by the immune system.  

Prion diseases are infectious and transmissible protein misfolding neurodegenerative diseases of mammals. The research group of Dr Raymnod Bujdoso have developed PrP transgenic Drosophila as an invertebrate model of authentic prion disease. My research project is focussing on studying the gene expression changes that occur during prion disease in this model system to investigate the pathogenic processes occuring.

I am a senior research associate with an interest in microbial functional genomics, in particular Klebsiella pneumoniae and other Enterobacteriaceae species (Salmonella Typhimurium, Enterobacter cloacae).

I am using different sequencing-based methods to understand how the human pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae interacts with the immune system, in particular macrophages.