Wednesday 04 October 2017
A blog post from Sophie Casey:
I was recently awarded the Irish Research Council’s Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship for a 4 year PhD project. My work will investigate the downstream targets and effects of microRNA alterations in neonatal hypoxic encephalopathy (HIE) – a leading cause of infant mortality and lifelong disability.
I will examine the circulating microRNA alterations over time in a well-established animal model of HIE and research the proposed target pathways of these microRNAs. This allows insight into the genes which may be involved in the mechanisms of action behind the neuronal injury.
Future plans involve investigation into the effects and targets of microRNA alterations in cell models of hypoxia. As the investigation of microRNA alterations was performed during the BiHIVE study, the goal of this project is to identify potential cross-species bridging biomarkers of HIE.
Other research interests include autism spectrum disorders and their links to circulating cytokine alterations.
This work will be carried out under the supervision of Dr. Deirdre Murray, Dr. Gerard O’Keeffe and Prof. Geraldine Boylan.
Huge congratulations, Sophie!
