Profile

I was always curious about the biology around me. When not performing experiments or reading or writing about them I enjoy reading scifi novels, walks in the woods and playing and watching foootball.

With increased lifespans, ageing is the largest risk factor for most human diseases in developed countries. Protein translation is one of the most essential processes for normal growth and development but is hijacked by cancer cells and therefore, targeted by many cancer-therapy drugs. Translation and the subsequent protein-folding are error prone and leads to accumulation of misfolded proteins. This becomes worsen during ageing leading to diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Interventions to moderately reduce the rate of translation increase longevity and improves ageing related morbidities in laboratory animals. While the study of specific disease processes is essential, a comprehensive understanding of the translation process is vital to accurately identify underlying molecular mechanisms to create novel therapies in certain diseases. Organisms contain many genes that do not code for proteins but for so-called non-coding RNAs. Many non-coding RNAs only get expressed in cells when exposed to stresses or diseases. Under these conditions cells tend to reduce general protein translation and prioritise the synthesis of specific proteins required to survive under stress. We do not know how these non-coding RNAs help to finetune the translation process. Using fission yeast as a manageable and cost-effective model organism, we tried to answer that question especially during cellular ageing. The translation process is very complex yet, very similar in different organisms, including humans making it easier to study in simple organisms.

I take a train from Haywards Heath to London everyday around 8 am. A single train journey of 1 hr is convenient that I get to read journal articles or anayse some of my experimental data or do some report writing. I plan my day, book required lab equipment ahead of time (some equipment are shared among many labs in the departmnet), perform experiments, supervise student reserach, discuss with them about their results, participate in meetings with my colleagues and the supervisor and some days present my work to different audiences. To minimise the time spent for buying lunch I take packed lunch everyday. Our lucnch times are bit tentative depends on the day’s experiments. I share an office with many other scientists where I sit and work in my computer. Experiments are done in the laboratory where I have a designated bench space. On most days I take the train back home around 6 pm.