I am a PhD candidate in Parasitology at the University of Glasgow and Lancaster University. Since graduating from my MSc in Tropical Disease Biology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, I have worked as a research assistant at Newcastle University in the field of immunology, where I researched the complement system and pursued a secondment investigating the immune response to COVID-19. I also worked as a research assistant at Stirling University as part of a project investigating the presence and persistence of bacterial pathogens on plastic waste in the context of East African waste piles. After exploring a variety of areas within infectious disease research, I have now chosen to undertake a PhD project researching the role of ubiquitination in Leishmania cell cycle and DNA damage repair.
Project overview
Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by the intracellular protozoan parasite Leishmania. Ubiquitination is a post-translational modification which in other organisms plays a crucial role in the cell cycle and stress responses including DNA damage repair, but this process is underexplored in Leishmania. During my PhD project I aim to identify and investigate ubiquitination enzymes which have an important role in the Leishmania biology.