School of Biomedical Sciences

Biophysical characterisation of the bacterial chemosensory protein, PscF

Boult, Sean Alexander Graham

In bacteria, movement in response to a chemical stimulus is known as chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is controlled by a class of ligand binding proteins called chemoreceptors and works to bias cell movement towards environments ...

Flowering time control in legumes: investigation of the photoperiod pathway

Napier, Nathanael John

Understanding how plants integrate environmental and endogenous cues to ensure flowering occurs at a time of highest reproductive success is of significant interest. Flowering time is a key trait in agriculture as flowering ...

RNF125 activated ubiquitin transfer by Ube2K

Fokkens, Thornton J.

The covalent attachment of ubiquitin to substrate proteins (ubiquitylation) is a post-translational modification involved in numerous cell signalling pathways, most notably the process of protein degradation. Ubiquitylation ...

Biochemistry of Apoptosis Signal-regulating Kinase 1 Regulation and Hydrogen Peroxide Signalling

Weijman, Johannes

All cells within an organism must respond to their environment. Responses are regulated by intracellular signalling pathways and signalling molecules. One such molecule is hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). H2O2 is required in many ...

Human epicardial adipose tissue acutely increases atrial fibrillation

Babakr, Aram Ahmed

Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is a fat layer that directly contacts the atrial myocardium. Increased EAT mass has emerged as a new risk factor for developing the most common type of irregular heart rhythm, atrial ...

The Stress and Strain of Triathlon Racing in Different Thermal Environments

Creasy, Robert

Athletic endurance competitions in hot environments have become more relevant in professional sports. The inception for this thesis was to understand why a group of elite endurance triathletes repeatedly failed to perform ...

Cognitive Impairment in a Prefrontal Cortex Model of Ischaemia

Zhou, Lisa Ying Yi

Every year, millions of people worldwide will have a stroke. For those that survive, many will live with long lasting disabilities, including cognitive impairment. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of preclinical ...

The role of exocyst members sec6 and sec8 in the anterograde trafficking of KCa3.1 to the basolateral membrane of polarised epithelial cells

Eckhoff-Björngard, Yoakim

In epithelia, ion channels play an essential role in maintaining the required electrochemical gradients for the tissue to function. This function can translate to electrolyte and fluid homeostasis which in turn, relies on ...

The role of PsbX and PsbY in Photosystem II of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803

Biswas, Sandeep

Photosystem II (PS II) is the water-plastoquinone oxido-reductase responsible for splitting water in photosynthesis. The core of the enzyme is surrounded by 13 low-molecular-weight (LMW) proteins (<10 kDa). In this study, ...

The impact of hepatic steatosis on liver circulation, transplantation, ischaemia-reperfusion injury and its relation with nitrous oxide

Sun, Cheuk Kwan

Obesity is now a major health threat in the developed world. To investigate the impact of obesity-induced steatosis on hepatic blood flow, portal venous and hepatic arterial blood flow were measured in the anaesthetized ...

Shear Force Activation of the Epithelial Sodium Channel (ENaC): Role of the β- and γ-Subunits

Baldin, Jan-Peter Markus

Mechanotransduction describes the ability of a living organisms to sense mechanical forces that are caused through changes in the environment. It is a complex mechanism in which mechanical forces are converted into a ...

BCG impact on Innate Lymphoid Cells: Determining the Site of Proliferation

Hughes, Laura

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious lung disease that is a major cause of mortality, causing an estimated 1.7 million deaths globally per year. The current prophylactic vaccine used against TB, bacille Calmette Guérin (BCG), ...

The role of Numb in honeybee ovary activation

Taylor, Shannon Elisa

Environmental signals in utero are throught to induce plastic changes to metabolism and gene regulation, causing diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes. For example, fetal undernutrition is associated with obesity, hyperglycemia, ...

The role of the mTOR-Raptor complex in driving hyperuricemia-induced diabetes mellitus

Brocherie, Paris Rhiannon

Elevated serum uric acid (hyperuricemia) when left untreated can lead to a range of pathologies including gout, cancer and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). It has been shown that after three days of exposure to hyperuricemic ...

Analysing components of the Torso-activation module: Do they pattern the end-terminal regions of two Hymenopteran insect species, Apis mellifera and Nasonia vitripennis?

Tuffery, Jack William

This project sought to determine if components of the Torso-activation module pattern the embryonic anterior and posterior ends of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, and the parasitoid wasp, Nasonia vitripennis via a patterning ...