Facilities

picture-buildings The Neuroscience and Ophthalmology laboratories have excellent molecular biology, tissue culture, viral preparation, electrophysiology, fluorescent imaging and confocal microscopy facilities and access to a full range of dedicated high quality biomedical services.

We also have access to core genomic, proteomic, FACS, NMR, electron microscopy and transgenic facilities through the College of Medical and Dental Sciences Technology Hub. The Neuroscience and Ophthalmology research group also have close links to the Wellcome Trust-funded clinical research facility and the adjoining Level 1 National Trauma Centre in Queen Elizabeth Hospital. This multidisciplinary setting makes the immediate local environment highly conducive to education, basic research, and translational research in neuroscience in general and in neurotrauma in particular.

Photo of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham

Clinical researchers at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital and National Centre for Mental Health that adjoin the Medical School are facilitating our focus on translational neuroscience. Together with trauma specialists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuro-opthalmologists, psychologists and psychiatrists at the new NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital are allowing us to applying insights gained through fundamental research to develop novel pharmacological and cellular therapies for acute and chronic neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease.

Expertise of our Staff

We are lucky to have some of the most talented academics in the country. Our staff have a wealth of expertise between them and are happy for this to be called upon whenever assistance or advice is required.

Staff Member	Areas of Expertise
Professor Zubair Ahmed	Spinal cord injury Optic nerve injury Multiple sclerosis Traumatic brain injury Molecular biology Gene delivery to the CNS Ocular drug delivery CNS axon regeneration Peripheral nerve injury Experimental models of CNS trauma and disease Microarray
Dr Ghazala Begum	Oligodendrocyte development Oligodendrocyte responses to excitotoxic injury Epigenetics Transcriptional regulation Maternal programming of the hypothalamus RNA and DNA extraction from blood, tissue and cells qPCR Microarrays western blots Immunocytochemistry ELISA FACS cells sorting Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays Bisulphite sequencing Methylation enrichment assays BRDU assay MTT assay Luciferase assays SiRNA
Dr Alison Cooper	Behavioural psychopharmacology Animal models of neurological/psychological disease
Dr John Curnow	Immune cell isolation and culture Multi-colour flow cytometry Multiplexed bead-based immunoassays (Luminex)
Mr Alastair Denniston	Uveitis and inflammatory eye disease Outcome measures and trial endpoints Core outcome sets Patient reported outcome measures Ocular imaging Ocular Immunology Clinical trials in ophthalmology Deprivation and eye disease Uveitis and inflammatory eye disease Outcome measures and trial endpoints Core outcome sets Patient reported outcome measures Ocular imaging Ocular Immunology Clinical trials in ophthalmology Deprivation and eye disease Uveitis and inflammatory eye disease Outcome measures and trial endpoints Core outcome sets Patient reported outcome measures Ocular imaging Ocular Immunology Clinical trials in ophthalmology Deprivation and eye disease
Dr Valentina Di Pietro	DNA\RNA and MicroRNA extraction and quantification (blood, saliva, culture cell, tissue, bacteria) PCR, RT, Reverse transcriptase-PCR one step, RTqPCR Gel electrophoresis in Agarose and cDNA quantification by means of densitometric analysis (ImageQuant TL v2003.03 software) Chain termination (dideoxy-nucleotide) DNA sequencing and interpretation cDNA cloning into expression vectors, protein expression in E.Coli, purification of recombinant proteins, functional characterization of proteins (enzyme assay) Western blot, SDS-PAGE, Protein extraction (Culture Cell, Tissue) ELISA test: Sandwich ELISA test (Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF), blood, cell culture media) Microarray analysis: gene expression profile (whole rat genome microarray chip), Genespring GX 10.0.2 software MicroRNAs fluid card: TAQ LOW DENSITY ARRAY and microRNAs NanoString technologies FACS analysis: Flow Cytometer Coulter Epics Elite ESP with FITC Annexin V Apoptosis Detection Kit (samples of cell cultures) Cellular cultures: PC3, Ca351D, MCF7, Organotypic Hippocampal Slice Cultures HPLC: ion-pairing HPLC separation with UV detection of cytosine, cytidine, creatinine, uracil, uridine, h-pseudouridine, adenine, 3-methyladenine, hypoxanthine, xanthine, xanthosine, inosine, guanosine, ascorbic acid, thymine, thymidine, uric acid, 1-methyluric acid, orotic acid, N-acetylaspartate, N-acetylglutamate, N-acetylaspartylglutamate, malonic acid, methylmalonic acid, GSH, and GSSG, nitrite, nitrate and vitamins profiling (samples of urine, CSF, serum, amniotic fluid, seminal fluid, cell cultures, tissue cultures, cell culture media) In vivo and in vitro animal model of TBI (weight drop acceleration model, stretch injury device) Bioediting software: BLAST, FASTA, OMIGA, CLUSTALW, BioEdit alignment editor, Primers designing (Primer 3), miRecords
Mr Simon Foale	Animal models of inflammatory demyelination qPCR and Western Blot Cell culture
Dr Daniel Fulton	Organotypic CNS slice cultures Oligodendrocyte development (molecular and cellular tools for the study of...) Fluorescent reporter mice oligodendrocytes and myelin Long-term live imaging of cell lines, primary cells, brain slice cultures Immunohistochemistry Semliki forest virus vectors for in vitro and in situ (slice culture) studies of glial cells Lentiviral vectors for transducing cell lines, primary cells and slice cultures Molecular cloning Luciferase reporter assays for studying promoter function
Dr Alicia Hidalgo	Molecular biology Cell culture Genetics Behavioural assays Optogenetics Microscopy including confocal TEM Timelapse Calcium imaging using GcAMP
Dr Kwang Chear Lee	Burns and Plastic surgery Burn scar measurement (subjective and objective scales)
Dr Zsuzsa Nagy	Biomarker qualification and clinical validation In vitro cellular models of disease Molecular network modelling High content omics data analysis
Dr Masahiro Otsu	Mouse embryonic stem cells Mouse neural stem cells qPCR and Western Blot
Mr Mo Rassul	Molecular cloning Generation of Semliki Forest viral vectors for transduction of glial cells Live-cell imaging Single molecule imaging and particle tracking
Dr Richard Tuxworth	Neurodevelopment Cell biology Lysosomal biology Drosophila models of neurodegeneration and neurodevelopment Genetics
Dr Graham Wallace	Ocular Immunology and immunogenetics
Dr Kevin Whitehead	In vivo Pharmacology Animal models of pain Microdialysis (particularly high molecular weight substances) HPLC
Dr Richard Williams	Physicist by training, PhD and post doc expertise in Biomaterials, Biomedical Imaging, GMP Manufacture Chemistry of disease and healing processes (mainly bone) and how biomaterial chemistry changes inside the body. Raman and micro-XRF chemical imaging. Specialise in mapping biological tissues and biomaterials Developing GMP grade manufacturing processes for healthcare products

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Facilities

Expertise of our Staff