I am a Kidney Research UK Intermediate Fellow working in the Kidney Development and Disease group at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. My research is focused on improving treatment options for childhood renal failure. To achieve this, I use clinically relevant models to  i) identify the drivers of kidney damage and ii) trial novel therapies to treat them. 

This work has led me to discover new mechanisms acting in kidney disease, including a newly described mutation in a gene called NOP10. NOP10 is involved in RNA processing and is central to ribosomal biology and telomere maintenance. This work was the first to describe a role for ribosomal RNA processing in glomerular disease. 

I also work on another more commonly implicated gene in childhood kidney disease, called Wilms’ Tumour 1 (WT1). Using single cell RNA sequencing, I am interested in how genetic mutations in WT1 affect its function and disrupt cell - cell signalling in the kidney glomerulus. Findings from this work will allow us to identify targeted genetic therapies that can be used to restore disrupted pathways in disease. 

Reflecting this, the second theme of my research is to improve how we deliver genetic therapies to the kidney, using cell-targeted lipid nanocomplexes and adeno-associated viral approaches.