A new academic year brings fresh energy to the Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre and we thought we would introduce some of our newest postgraduate researchers joining us across our research themes.

We asked them to share a few words about their interests, research focus, and what excites them most as they embark on their PhD journey. 

Here’s what a few of our students had to say…

Heike Turner, MRC iCASE DTP PhD student I am an MRC iCASE DTP PhD student, using precision modelling approaches to understand the effect of deprivation-induced inflammation on structural and functional brain plasticity in healthy ageing. My research combines cognitive and computational neuroscience, building upon my academic and industry background in neuroimaging at UCL and IXICO. I will complete my industry placement with UK Biobank, and I am looking forward to building upon my skills in computational modelling, diffusion imaging, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy. 

Francis Headley, British Heart Foundation PhD Student. Hi, I’m Frances and I am working in the Kasher lab within the stroke and dementia theme. My project is investigating the repurposing of hypertension medication to treat ICH, using zebrafish as a disease model. I am interested in how these drugs can reduce secondary injury after haemorrhage and provide a pharmacological treatment that can limit poor outcomes and disability in patients.

Milo Elmes, PhD Student in the stroke and dementia theme. Hi, I’m Milo, I’m excited to be exploring Intracerebral Haemorrhage research, focusing on how lipid dynamics influence efferocytosis during recovery. The collaboration at GJBRC will be perfect for progressing this work, and I’m looking forward to contributing and learning from others. 

Emily Byrne, PhD Student in the stroke and dementia theme. Hi, I’m Emily, I will be investigating the effect of chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH) on cerebral vasculature and neurovascular function, and whether this aggravates Amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology. My project will involve assessment of cognition, cerebral blood flow, Aβ deposition and vascular function. I am looking forward to learning new techniques and getting to know everyone in the division! 

Stefanny Calixto, PhD Student in the stroke and dementia theme. I’m Stefanny Calixto, a new PhD student in Professor Stuart Allan’s group. I’ll be working on developing new acute treatments for stroke by targeting the cytokine interleukin-1. 

 Charlotte Smith, PhD Student in the stroke and dementia theme. I’m Charlotte Smith and I have joined the stroke and dementia theme. Calcium dynamics within the cerebrovasculature play a crucial role in regulating blood vessel diameter. Disrupted calcium signalling has been demonstrated in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the presence of amyloid beta (Aβ). My PhD aims to investigate how localised calcium signalling regulates CBF in health and whether it is disrupted by Aβ in AD.  

Luiseach Gillespie, MRC DTP student. I will be studying Alzheimer’s Disease in Dr Roy Ng’s lab, within the Brain Inflammation Group. My main focus is on the strongest genetic link of late onset Alzheimer’s, the gene Apolipoprotein E, and how expressing different alleles alters the function and behaviour of our microglia. I am mostly doing in vitro cell culture but will hopefully move onto in vivo mouse model work after a few years. This project is continuing on from my Master’s last year, which I really enjoyed, and I’m very excited to see what I can discover!‘

Hope Shipley, British Heart Foundation PhD Student. Hi, I’m Hope Shipley and I’m currently in my 1st Year of my BHF funded PhD in Cardiovascular Sciences. My research focus is on human acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) thrombus composition and how this is important in development and application of thrombolytics to more effectively treat AIS. I will be investigating this by immunohistological staining of clinical AIS thrombi and analysing their composition using hyperion imaging mass cytometry.  I’m also interested in how infection pre-AIS can influence the composition of thrombi potentially altering the effectiveness of the current clinical treatments. Overall I’m really looking forward to exploring the intricate association of inflammation and thrombi composition.  

Will Hylton, PhD Student in the Stroke and Dementia theme. My research focuses on investigating immune-mediated pathways contributing to post-stroke cognitive decline. This includes a systematic review of preclinical interventions, cell-based studies exploring the role of IL-6, and analysis of clinical biomarkers of cognitive decline in relevant post-stroke cohorts. 

Phil Hayton, PhD student in the Parkinson’s theme. I am Phil Hayton and i have joined the Parkinson’s theme working with Monty Silverdale. My current main project is titled ‘Electrophysiological markers of automatic movements’. We’re using a computer-based motor task with scalp EEG and LFP (from implanted DBS) to explore how signal dynamics differ during continuous automatic (i.e non-attentional) and non-automatic (i.e attentionally demanding movements). For this we’re recruiting patients from the Northwest with Parkinson’s disease (STN-DBS), dystonia (GPi DBS), and essential tremor (VIM-DBS).  

Izzy Turner, MRC DTP student in Imaging theme. After recently completing my integrated master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology from the University of Manchester, I have stayed at UoM to begin an MRC-DTP with Shruti Garg, Caroline Lea-Carnall, and Nils Muhlert, focusing on understanding brain development in neurodevelopmental conditions such as Neurofibromatosis Type 1. I am looking forward to learning cutting-edge techniques in computational modelling, neuroimaging, and bioinformatics. I am also continuing into my fourth year as Local Group Student Representative for UoM with the British Neuroscience Association. 

We look forward to supporting all our new PhD students joining across the research themes and following the progress of their work. 

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