OpenLearn Profile

I am a cell physiologist specialising in calcium signalling and the regulation of calcium channels. My PhD was obtained in the laboratory of Bernd Walz at the University of Potsdam in Germany on the topic of ‘Signalling Pathways that Stimulate Protein and Fluid Secretion in Cockroach Salivary Glands’. This was followed by studying IP3 receptor-interacting proteins in Martin Bootman and Mike Berridge’s laboratory at The Babraham Institute in Cambridge, and the characterisation of two-pore channels (TPCs) as endolysosomal calcium channels activated by the second messenger NAADP in Antony Galione’s laboratory at Oxford University. Subsequently I joined the laboratory of Michael Sanderson at UMASS Medical School in Worcester, MA, USA and started working on a special type of cardiac cells called pulmonary vein sleeve cells (PVCs). From UMASS I moved to The Open University, first as a Research Fellow, before I became a Lecturer in Biology in 2016.