Current Lab Members

Neurulation Biomechanics lab members at the Great Ormond Street Hospital Rare Disease Day 2024.

 

Louis Hamilton, MRes student

Louis is undertaking an MRes dissertation project trying to understand how neuroepithelial cells initiate their apical constriction behavior.

 

Andrea Krstevski, Research assistant

Andrea provides practical support to various lab members with cell culture and mouse colony maintenance. She has also taken intellectual ownership of a project deciphering the sources of developmental variability which causes phenotypic partial penetrance in genetically-defined models of spina bifida.

 

Mohammed Ali, PhD student (primary supervisor Prof Patrizia Ferretti)

Mohammed is studying the mechanisms underlying a non-neural birth defect called microtia (under-developed ear). He is establishing 2D and 3D culture models of microtia using human chondroblasts, with a special interest in chondrocytes’ metabolomics. A long-term aim of this project is to generate transplantable cartilage which can withstand the biomechanical requirements of implantation into the ears of patients who have microtia.

 

Gabriel Galea, Principal Investigator

Gabriel did his PhD in cellular biomechanics at the University of Bristol, followed by brief externships to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, US. He primarily studied the regulation of bone cell gene expression by cell signalling, epigenetic and transcriptional mechanisms in response to mechanical strain. His current research interests are in the mechanisms by which embryonic cells generate, withstand and transmit the mechanical forces required to shape their tissues.

He is currently a Wellcome Clinical Research Career Development Fellow and a Wellcome Beit Prize holder.

Gabriel also lectures on various undergraduate and masters courses on topics including neural tube defects, skeletal functional adaptation and bioimaging.