Overview

I started my PhD in January 2018 after completing my undergraduate degree at Exeter. I completed my undergraduate project within the aquarium facilities at the university and it led me to pursue further research into understanding the aquatic environment, specifically focusing on current challenges facing this environment.    

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Biosciences with Professional Placement (2017) - University of Exeter 

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Research

Research interests

Broad research specialisms: Ecotoxicology, Zebrafish, Developmental toxicity

Research projects

Project Title: Advancing understanding of glucocorticoid effects in fish

Supervisors: Prof. Charles Tyler, Dr Matthew Winter, Dr Luigi Margiotta-Casaluci, Dr Stewart Owen     

Funding Body: BBSRC/AstraZeneca 

Project Description: Synthetic glucocorticoid drugs are used by millions of people worldwide on a daily basis to treat a wide variety of conditions that involve inflammation. However, how glucocorticoids work  in non mammalian vertebrates is poorly understood and this is a major knowledge gap as these drugs enter into aquatic environments.  In mammals, there are several proposed modes of action that could explain how glucocorticoids reduce inflammation and regulate cortisol in fish, but despite extensive study there is yet no agreed mechanistic process that can explain both the nuclear and nongenomic pathways of cortisol action. Recently members of this team have published information that explains effects observed in extensive and multiple in vivo studies and goes some way to addressing the lack of fundamental understanding as to how this class of compounds acts in fish.  However, some unexpected exposure effects have been reported showing poor survival in the offspring for parental exposures in zebrafish. These findings cannot be explained from our current understanding of fish physiology.   

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