Profile

I work at The University of Manchester and have spent virtually my whole research career here, from undergraduate student, to PhD student, to my first job as a ‘post-doc’. For my PhD I was based in the maternity hospital in Manchester and indulged in the gory fun of placental biology! I researched placental stem cells and how they are vital to forming the blood vessels in the placenta. Having enough well formed vessels is really important so that the baby can receive all the nutrients it needs from mum, otherwise it will not grow appropriately and this can lead to all sorts of problems, even later in life when they are in their 40s! Now I work on wound healing, and how bone marrow stem cells are involved in the cleaning up and repair of skin wounds. I’m really interested in diabetic wounds, because these often dont heal properly and are the leading cause of amputation in the developed world today. 15% of all diabetics will at some point suffer such a wound and so its very important that we try and find out WHY the healing goes wrong and HOW we can make it better.

I love my job because its so variable- some days I will spend the whole day in my lab coat carrying out experiments and teaching students, whilst others I will spend managing my technician, delivering talks, attending workshops and preparing written work to be published. I’m very fortunate to have such a flexible role, and I think the fact that I plan what I want to do with my own day/week/year is just fab! Then I go home and either run climbing sessions for my local Scouts, go training with my running club or crash out and watch Corrie!