Research Assistant, Division of Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery

Email: ms2304@cam.ac.uk

Research interests

I joined the Division of Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery as a Research Assistant in May 2015 under the supervision of Prof McCaskie and Dr Birch. My research focuses on understanding the mechanism of action of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) in cartilage and bone repair. It is known that BM-MSCs populations are heterogeneous and composed of different MSC sub-populations. My project is to characterize the role of MSC subtypes, investigating their immunoregulatory properties and evaluating the effect of inflammatory stimuli and 3D environment on cell activity. I will further be involved in the development of mouse models to study the contribution of bone marrow cells to cartilage and bone repair.

Areas of expertise

Gene expression, PCR, DNA, cell culture, gel electrophoresis, western blot analysis, mRNA, DNA extraction, RNA extraction, molecular cell, biology, transfection, immunofluorescence, protein purification, agarose gel, electrophoresis, cancer biology, protein expression, cell line culture, reverse transcription, primary cell culture, restriction digestion, bacterial transformation, RNA interference, mRNA expression, plasmid cloning, protein extraction, cell line maintenance, electroporation