Hi everyone, my name is Katy, and I am one of the newest additions to the Research Team along with Libby!
Before joining the Association, I completed my undergraduate degree in Biology with Psychology at Lancaster University, before moving to the University of Sheffield to complete my masters in Translational Neuroscience at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN). I stayed at SITraN after my masters, completing my PhD in 2022 and spending a couple of years as a postdoctoral researcher, in the lab of Professor Heather Mortiboys.
My research in the lab was focused on cells, the tiny building blocks that make up every organ and tissue in our bodies. For something so tiny, cells are infinitely complex – a whole orchestra of different parts, working together in perfect harmony. I was able to study cells kindly donated by people living with Alzheimer’s and people without Alzheimer’s of a similar age. A small amount of skin is taken from the arm and transported back to the lab. Under the right conditions, skin cells called fibroblasts start to grow from the skin, which we can use in research. These cells will continue to grow for a long time, and we can even store them in the freezer, so we can use a person’s cells in a lot of different research! The donations of skin biopsies are an invaluable resource that really helps us to understand the cellular processes in people with Alzheimer’s and other conditions such as MND.
During my research, I concentrated on a part of the cell called the mitochondria. You might have heard mitochondria referred to as the ‘powerhouse of the cell’ – this means that they function as the cell’s batteries, producing the energy that a cell needs to survive and function effectively. If the mitochondria aren’t producing enough energy for the cell, the cell may stop working and eventually die. Mitochondria in cells from people with Alzheimer’s don’t work as well as in cells from people without Alzheimer’s, and the aim of my PhD project was to investigate why this might be. Mitochondria don’t like to work in isolation, they form a complex network throughout the cell, which can change in response to the cell’s needs. I found that in people with Alzheimer’s, there are problems in the processes controlling the size and shape of the mitochondria network.
You might be wondering how skin cells are relevant to Alzheimer’s or MND, which affect the brain, not the skin. Believe it or not, many of the same processes occur in skin cells as in brain cells, and so we can learn a lot even from people’s skin. However, something exciting that we can do in the lab is turn skin cells into brain cells! This meant that I was able to see the same processes in brain cells, and study how the problems with mitochondria affected them, looking at things like cell survival and shape. The problems in the mitochondria may be contributing to the brain cells dying, which in turn contributes to the symptoms seen in Alzheimer’s.
After my PhD, I worked on a drug discovery project – this was work done at the very early stages of drug discovery. We gave cells from people with MND, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s different chemicals to see if they had a positive effect on the mitochondria. I was able to test over 1000 conditions per experiment, which meant I could test a lot of chemicals in a short space of time! We identified some promising candidates, and work is continuing on these.
I am proud to be joining the Association and keen to use my scientific knowledge and research experience in my new role! I look forward to sharing new and exciting developments in research which will help people living with MND.
