Post-doctoral research focusing on the development of novel radiotracers for brain imaging in disease states. This is a collaborative project between the Tavares and Waldman groups as part of the MS Society Edinburgh Centre for MS Research, within the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences.

My PhD project is primarily focused on the development and testing of a novel radiotracer to image oligodendrocytes in the central nervous system. Due to the novel nature of this PhD I have had to work independently a great deal of the time and I have developed my lab skills greatly. I have worked on using immunofluorescence to characterise a target in brain tissue, [3H] binding assays and autoradiography to assess the selectivity of novel tracers for the target, ran pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies on a novel ligand and ran first time in vivo PET scans. Throughout all of the research done in this project I have been immersed in the research from planning the studies, to running them in the lab through to analysing the data using specialist software packages such as PMOD (PET data).

In this role I worked on consenting and recruiting hospital inpatients to a medical device trial. I conducted various cognitive assessments with the patients and inputting this information in an anonymised and protected database. I also had a key role in the final write up of the paper upon the completion of this trial.

During my Masters by research I worked as a researcher conducting cognitive assessments with acute stroke patients. I worked on every aspect of this project from designing the study sheets to creating the database used to input the data. I also conducted a systematic review which was published alongside my research study in a prestigious journal. I also had a role in the collection and analysis of secondary data collected in other similar studies. During this time I also volunteered to help recruit for other studies looking at visual field deficits in stroke outpatients.