Selected
works
Read each section to learn more about how my colleagues and I are combating childhood diseases.
Motor Neuron disease in children
(Spinal Muscular Atrophy)
As a Research Associate at Columbia University, New York within Professor George Mentis’s laboratory, I studied neuronal network and ion channel physiology within the context of an inherited motor neuron disease, spinal muscular atrophy. With my colleagues, our work (Fletcher et al., 2017, Nature Neuroscience; Vukojicic et al., 2019, Cell Reports; Simon et al., 2021, J Neuroscience) has challenged not only the field’s dogma that neurodegenerative diseases result from the death of one neuronal type but is the first to show that neurodegeneration in children involves the immune system.
Childhood Epilepsies
(Dravet Syndrome)
My PhD focused on pediatric epilepsies and investigated how children’s genetic make-up may change the function of their ion channels, and thus their response to anti-epileptic drugs (Fletcher et al., 2011, J Bio Chem). I received world-class training in electrophysiology, studying in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, UK, No.1 in the world for epilepsy research. I was privileged to study under Professor's Dimitri Kullmann and Stephanie Schorge.
Malignant brain cancers
(Diffuse Midline Glioma and Glioblastoma)
At the Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia, I research into malignant brain cancers that can affect children and adults called high-grade gliomas. We know that these tumors connect with the healthy brain, and even thinking can drive the growth of these tumors (Boyle et al., 2022, Cancers). We are testing whether commonly used drugs used for conditions like epilepsy will break this connection and block tumor growth.
Pain management in antenatal health
At the University of Cambridge within the laboratory of Professor Geoff Woods, with colleagues I studied antenatal and newborn health, particularly pain management during childbirth. We showed (Lee et al., 2020, Cell Reports) that during labor carriers of a genetic variant in an ion channel gene prevents pain signals reaching the brain, acting as a natural epidural. Read more here.
