I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Gastroenterology. I undertook a degree in pharmacology in University College Dublin, Ireland and completed my PhD in vascular pharmacology in the same institution. I moved to the University of Manchster to work with Prof Arthur Weston and Dr Gillian Edwards, investigating the roles of the Calcium-sensing receptor and the orphan G-Protein coupled receptor, GPRC6A, in the control of vascular physiology.
I then got the opportunity to work as a University of Manchester Postdoc in Prof Anne White’s group in a collaboration based at AstraZeneca for four years. This area of research involved investigating the effects of central and peripheral glucocorticoid regeneration on the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and on metabolic pathways.
At present, I am investigating how chronic glucocorticoid treatment acts on hypothalamic networks causing adverse metabolic effects. In particular, I am interested in how peripherally administered glucocorticoids act in the hypothalamus via AgRP neurons to effect food intake, body weight and glucose and insulin homeostasis.