In 2004 I was enrolled in Royal Free and University College Medical School. During my third pre-clinical year I developed an interest in transplantation and transplant immunology when I undertook a project in the Department of Surgery at the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead. I investigated the effect of remote ischaemic preconditioning on apoptotic gene expression in the liver of a rat model of ischaemia-reperfusion injury. I subsequently presented my research findings at the annual Royal Society of Medicine transplantation meeting and was awarded the Young Investigator of the Year prize.
Having committed to a career in academic surgery at this early juncture in my training I availed of the opportunity to read a Masters Degree in Immunology at the University of Oxford. This year provided the invaluable foundation of knowledge upon which to commence a D. Phil in Surgery in the Transplantation Research Immunology Group (TRIG) in October 2008, under the supervision of
Dr. Nick Jones and Professor Kathryn Wood. My topic of research is investigating the role of memory T cells in a mouse model of cardiac and skin graft rejection and the development of tolerance induction strategies with the use of regulatory T cells. This work has been generously funded by a
three year non-clinical fellowship awarded by the British Transplantation Society.
After completion of my D. Phil. I shall return to clinical school and commence my surgical training thereafter. I intend to continue my academic pursuits in transplant surgery during this time and look forward to contributing to research both at a basic science level and clinically within the surgical environment.
