People: Personalised Medicine Research

Dr William Duddy

Senior Lecturer in Stratified Medicine (Bioinformatics)

Dr Duddy is co-lead of Ulster University’s neuromuscular research team, his primary focus being the translation of the team’s findings into clinical and commercial impact. Building on a diverse background in molecular & cellular biology, biochemistry, and bioinformatics, he integrates systems biology data analytics into the team’s cutting-edge cell and molecular studies. Results generated by this integrative approach have led the team to investigate the role of secretory vesicles - microscopic molecular packages released by cells - in neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders. The neuromuscular team has identified vesicles as a source of neuronal toxicity – and therefore as novel drug targets - and also as a source of biomarkers that could enable diagnosis of a range of neuromuscular and neurodegenerative conditions from a simple blood draw.

His commitment to neuromuscular research derives from losing his brother to Duchenne muscular dystrophy - which he has discussed in the context of rare disease research advocacy.

Research Background

Dr Duddy’s PhD project at the University of Glasgow was focused on computational analyses of molecular geometry, during which he learned various large data analytical techniques and programming. As a post-doctoral researcher at Children's National Medical Center, Washington DC, he published several papers on cell and murine models of muscle disease. As project lead in bioinformatics at the Center of Research in Myology, Sorbonne/UPMC, Paris, he developed data mining and systems biology approaches to neuromuscular pathology.

Research Publications & Editorial roles

Dr Duddy has published more than 45 international research papers and book chapters, which have collectively been cited over 1,000 times (Scopus profile).

He is an active editor for the Journal of Personalised Medicine since 2020, and is a regular peer reviewer for international journals including Nucleic Acids Research, Human Molecular Genetics, Plos One, Frontiers, Genes, Brain Communications, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, JoVE, MDPI Biomedicines, MDPI Applied Sciences, Biocybernetics, IBRO, Cells, and Proteomics Clinical Applications.

Professional & Civic Profile

His activities support collaborative research in personalised medicine for neuromuscular disease, and building partnerships that raise the profile of neuromuscular research and that raise public awareness of rare neuromuscular conditions.

Board and panel representations:

• Call Steering Committee member and Peer Review Panel member for the European Research Area Network in Personalised Medicine (2018-2023).
• Scientific Evaluator and Session Moderator of the ERA Personalised Medicine final symposium (2023).
• Doctoral Fellowship Evaluation Panel member for HSC Research & Development (2021).
• Research grant reviewer for BBSRC, MRC, French Association against Myopathy, Leverhulme Trust, Lombardy Regional Fund, Netherlands Duchenne Parent Project.

Charity involvement, professional partnerships, and public outreach:

• Board member of the Northern Ireland Rare Disease Partnership (2018-2020) and scientific advisor (2021-present).
• Member of Muscular Dystrophy UK Communications Group (2022-present)
• Author of RTÉ Brainstorm article, “A molecular murder mystery: what kills motor neurons?”
• Founding member of the Ulster University Alliance against Rare Diseases, Ulster-RARE

Teaching Interests

Module coordinator for Multi-omics and Systems Biology (BIO535) and for Applied Bioinformatics (BIO548), both of which are final year modules on the Personalised Medicine degree.

He also contributes lectures and/or assessments in various other modules, and teaching workshops to the MBBS medicine degree programme.

Sources of the Team’s Research Funding

AFM-Téléthon, ARSLA, the Association of British Neurologists, Duchenne Ireland, Invest NI, the Irish Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, Muscular Dystrophy UK, the Target-ALS Foundation, and industry collaboration.

Dr Stephanie Duguez

Senior Lecturer

Dr Duguez was awarded her PhD on “muscle cell biology and metabolism” at Jean Monnet University (Saint Etienne, France), during which time she was an Associate Lecturer.

She was then appointed as a post-doctoral Research Fellow working on Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy type 2A, at Genethon (Evry, France), following which she took up a Research Associate position on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at Children’s National Medical Center (Washington, US), before being appointed as a Project leader at the Institute of Myology (Paris, France).

She joined the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine at Ulster University in 2016, where she leads Ulster University’s research group on Neuromuscular Health.

Research Interests

Dr Duguez has been committed to neuromuscular research since her PhD at Jean Monnet University on muscle cell metabolism, and Research Fellowship on Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy at Genethon (France). As a Research Associate at Children’s National Medical Center (US), she pioneered exploration of the role of muscle vesicles in neuromuscular disease.

Determined to develop this theme further, upon returning to France as a Project Leader at the Institute of Myology (Paris), and learning of Prof PF Pradat’s interest in the potential role of muscle in ALS, she proposed to extract myoblasts from patient biopsies and characterize their secretory vesicles.

Her research group at Ulster University is now composed of biologists and bioinformaticians and explores the intercellular communication between muscle tissue and surrounding cells, including motor neurons, inflammatory cells and fibroblasts.

They are using human muscle stem cells and studying the secretome profiles by different OMICS approaches such as proteomic, metabolomic, and transcriptomic analyses.

The aim is to decipher the role of intercellular communication in different physiological and pathological conditions such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy (SBMA), and Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA-III & IV).

Characterizing the muscle secretome will allow us to identify biomarkers and to unravel new therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative disorders.

Her work on muscle vesicles is bolstered by an international network of collaborators including: clinicians (Paris, London, ‘Derry/Londonderry, Belfast), biopharma (Belfast), researchers on murine models (Marseilles, London, Strasbourg, Keele), cellular models (Evry), metabolomics (Tours), and on muscle transcriptomics (Washington DC, Strasbourg) and proteomics (Washington DC).

To explore muscle cellular functions in different physiological and pathological contexts, her group secured a biobank of primary muscle cells from healthy subjects and from different disease and age groups. In addition, and in collaboration with neurologist colleagues, her group has put in place the Northern Ireland Motor Neuron Disease Biobank.

Research Publications and Communication

See Scopus link for Dr Duguez’s publications.

Dr Duguez has been invited or selected as a speaker at over 19 international conferences (e.g. ARSLA, MDA, WMS).

Invited Reviewer

Dr Duguez is a frequent reviewer for national and international funding bodies (e.g. BBSRC, MRC, ANR, AFM, ArSLA) and peer-reviewed journals (see Publons link).

Public Outreach and Civic Contribution

Dr Duguez is dedicated to the “Rare Diseases” field. She is a board member of the Northern Ireland Rare Disease Partnership (NIRDP), an association that aims to raise awareness for rare diseases. Dr Duguez is also involved in the Northern Ireland Rare Diseases Implementation Group (NIRDIG).

Teaching Interests

Dr Duguez contributes to teaching on a number of on-campus and distance-learning undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Biomedical Sciences at Ulster University. She is module co-ordinator at BSc level and contributes to other modules at BSc, PgCert and MSc level. Topics taught: Anatomy and Systems Based Physiology; Cellular and Molecular Pathophysiology; Clinical Trial Design; Clinical or Fundamental Research Design.

PhD Researcher  Profile

Dr Duguez is open to wide-ranging PhD applications from candidates with a cellular and molecular science or clinical background. Her fields of interest include:

• Molecular mechanisms in neuromuscular and neurodegenerative conditions
• Biomarkers and personalized therapeutic strategies for neuromuscular and neurodegenerative conditions
• Muscle ageing and Muscle wasting
• Multi-omic analysis and Bioinformatics

Professor David Gibson

Professor of Medicine

After his Biochemistry degree, Dr David Gibson worked at Randox Laboratories Ltd, where he was responsible for designing and commercialising novel biochip array diagnostic tests.

He was awarded a PhD in 2001 from the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology, Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), for research which exposed the role of cysteine proteinases in brain tumour invasion.

During a Wellcome Trust Fellowship Dr Gibson investigated the role of inflammation in a hypoxia driven model of diabetic retinopathy at the Centre of Vision and Vascular Science, QUB.

Since 2003 Dr Gibson focused his research efforts on the discovery and validation of protein biomarkers which could improve the management of arthritis patients.

During his time at the Rooney laboratory in the Centre of Infection and Immunity, QUB he spearheaded the use of proteomic and bioinformatics strategies to discover clinically useful biomarker candidates. He also identified post translational modifications in the Vitamin D binding protein that may act as a modulator of inflammation in juvenile arthritis patients.

In 2009, Dr Gibson was awarded a prestigious travel fellowship from Arthritis Research UK to conduct mass spectrometry based research at the Duncan laboratory at the University of Colorado, Denver over two years.

Research Interests

In 2013 Dr Gibson took up his post as Lecturer in Stratified Medicine and his research is focused on adult rheumatoid arthritis (RA). He is particularly interested in the development of new prognostic and predictive tools to improve the clinical management of arthritis patients.

He employs novel mass spectrometry based methods to robustly identify and quantify disease associated proteins in blood. He is also interested in the application of protein array technologies for autoantibody screening and flow cytometry in measuring B- and T-cell activation.

He has established research programmes in three key areas:
1. Mechanisms and biomarkers of resistance to biologic therapies.
2. Mechanisms and biomarkers of response to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.
3. Alternate blood sampling methods to support home based monitoring of arthritis.

Ultimately, Dr Gibson will develop novel monitoring tools to help clinicians target those patients who do not respond well to current therapeutics or develop drug resistance over time. This would allow earlier more effective treatments in RA patients, thus preventing joint damage and reducing disability.

Teaching Interests

1. Introduction to Pharmacogenomics and Stratified Medicine
2. Inflammatory and Immunological Disease
3. Genomics, Proteomics and Metabolomics
4. Disease and Treatment 2

Administrative Roles

BSc Associate Course Director

Dr Catriona Kelly

Senior Lecturer

Catriona’s PhD examined the role of cellular communication in insulin secretion and developed a pseudoislet model to study the importance of gap junction mediated cell-to-cell contact in normal beta-cell function.

In 2007, she began a post-doctoral career at Queen’s University of Belfast where she first worked on the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of retinal perfusion and blood pressure and the pathophysiological changes responsible for the disruption of retinal blood flow during early diabetes. She subsequently took up a post-doctoral position, where she studied NF-kB driven inflammation in the airways epithelium of patients with Asthma and Cystic Fibrosis.

Catriona took up a Lectureship at Keele in February 2011 before moving to Ulster University in 2013.

Research Interests

Catriona’s research focuses on understanding how inflammatory and apoptotic signalling pathways are altered in disease. The aim of this research is to identify target genes or pathways that will predict disease development, disease severity or response to treatment.

Work to date has focused on two primary disease states: Diabetes and inflammatory lung disease (CF, asthma). Common to both diseases is the state of persistent inflammation leading to tissue destruction and apoptosis.

Current research interests include:

• The use of 3D cell models for the study of diseases, which alleviates much of the reliance on animal or human tissue for initial experimental investigations
• The use of adjunctive stem cell therapies to prevent apoptosis/promote cell regeneration
• The identification of disturbances in inflammatory and apoptotic pathways that lead to development of disease and associated complications
• The stratification of patients to identify and optimise treatment regimes.

Catriona’s work has been supported by the CF Trust, Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Society for Endocrinology, The Physiological Society, Iraqi MOHESR and the 3ME Initiative (EPSRC).

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate Teaching:
BIO122 Anatomy and Physiology (Module Coordinator)
BIO126 Disease and Treatment
BIO335 Epidemiology of Disease
BIO336 Pharmacology (Module Coordinator)
Postgraduate Teaching:
BIO833 Research Project (Module Coordinator)

Administrative Roles

Course Director, BSc Hons Stratified Medicine
Life and Health Sciences Faculty Board

• Research Gate
• ORCID ID

Dr Kyle Matchett

Senior Lecturer

Dr Kyle Matchett is a Lecturer in Molecular Immunology and Principal Investigator (PI) at the School of Medicine, Ulster University. Dr Matchett’s research is focused on understanding the molecular pathways that are perturbed by pathogenic drivers in childhood and adult acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and targeting these using both synthetic lethality and rational drug strategies. To do this, his lab utilises a range of genomic, molecular and biochemical approaches, including CRISPR-Cas9 engineering, high-throughput drug screening and advanced preclinical models.

Dr Matchett has been awarded >£1M in funding as PI since joining Ulster in October 2018, including grants from Novartis, Little Princess Trust and Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group. He is a PI on the recent €4M Strand III Higher Education Academy (HEA) North-South Award to the All-Island Cancer Research Institute (AICRI), where he is a Steering Committee member. Furthermore, he has funded grants with collaborators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York, and University College Dublin (UCD).

Dr Matchett published 17 papers in the recent REF2021 reporting period, including publication in internationally recognised journals, such as PNAS, Cancer Research, Stem Cells, Oncogene and British Journal of Haematology. His research has been recognised by a number of awards, including both the Faulty and Overall Champion Early Career Research Excellence Prizes by Ulster University (2019), Novartis Fellowship and Medal Award (2017) and the inaugural Prof John Fitzpatrick Prize by the Irish Association for Cancer Research (IACR) (2015). Dr Matchett sits on the Research Advisory Board for a leading UK cancer charity, is a member of the IACR Senior Council and is currently leading the Early Career Research Strategy Group at Ulster University as part of developing the new institutional strategy.

Dr Matchett teaches on both the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at Ulster University, across multiple modules. He is Course Director on the MBiolSci/MBiomedSci degrees, in collaboration with Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, and is Module Coordinator on four modules, including three with a specific research focus. Dr Matchett has a keen interest in leadership and supervision in higher education and has published the results of a School-wide study in this area. He completed his PGCHET in 2014 and was awarded a Fellowship of the Higher Education in 2015.

Prior to joining Ulster University, Dr Matchett completed his PhD and postdoctoral training at Queen's University Belfast, funded by Cancer Research UK, EU FP7 and Leukaemia and Lymphoma NI. His EU FP7 post involved collaboration and extensive travel with partner laboratories in Madrid, Innsbruck, Tel-Aviv, Vienna, Munich and Zurich. During this time, Dr Matchett played a key role in the development of novel EPO receptor antibodies with industrial partners Aldevron (Germany). He also led his own research which resulted in several publications.

Dr Paula McClean

Senior Lecturer

Dr Paula McClean graduated from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in 2004 with a First Class Honors degree in Medicinal Chemistry. In 2007 she completed a PhD at Ulster University in Diabetes and Endocrinology, focusing on the clinical utility of incretin hormone analogues for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity.

She then completed a number of postdoctoral research posts at Ulster University, initially within the Diabetes Research Group, moving to the Neuroscience Research Group in 2008 to explore the utility of incretin analogues in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Currently Paula is a Lecturer at the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine at Ulster University (2013-present), with active clinical and preclinical research in the area of Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an author and invited reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals and is an honorary researcher at the Western Health and Social Care Trust. Membership extends to external organisations including Diabetes UK, the Irish Endocrine Society and the Society for Neuroscience.

Research Interests

Dr McClean’s research interests span the intricate relationship between obesity, diabetes, cognitive dysfunction, Alzheimer’s disease and the inflammatory process associated with diseases of ageing.

She is actively involved in the preclinical development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Ongoing clinical studies are focused on stratification of type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease patients with respect to more accurate (and timely) diagnosis and response to therapy.

Teaching Interests

Neurological disease, Psychiatry for Stratified Medicine, Anatomy and Physiology and Clinical Governance, Regulatory process and ethics.

Administrative Roles

Module co-ordinator for BIO338 Neurological Disease (BSc Hons Stratified Medicine) and BIO125 Clinical Governance, regulatory process and ethics (BSc Hons Stratified Medicine).

Dr Victoria McGilligan

Senior Lecturer

Dr Elaine Murray

Senior Lecturer

Dr. Elaine Murray graduated from Ulster University in 2003 with a BSc Hons degree in Biomedical Sciences with a Diploma in Industrial Studies. She went on to complete her PhD in Neuroscience and Behaviour at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the United States in 2010, where she demonstrated that perinatal disruption of histone acetylation leads to long lasting changes in sexually dimorphic regions of the brain. These findings were among the first to indicate that epigenetic changes are involved in sexual differentiation of the brain.

During her PhD studies, Elaine received the Vincent G. Dethier Award for Neuroscience and Behaviour Postgraduate Student of the year and was invited to present her findings at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Dr. Murray continued as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts and in 2011 she was appointed as a Lecturer with teaching responsibilities in Laboratory Neuroscience, Neuroanatomy and Behavioural Neuroscience.

She joined the Translational Neuroscience research group at the University of Aberdeen as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2011, where she worked on the genetic basis of major mental illness as part of a Pfizer Neuroscience Grand Challenge project.

Elaine returned to Northern Ireland in 2013 to take up her current post as Lecturer at Ulster University within the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine. She is an expert reviewer for a number of funding bodies and journals, is a Member of the Society for Neuroscience and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Research interests

Elaine's current research focuses on identifying novel biomarker panels to improve diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders. she is particularly interested in the role of epigenetic modifications and sex differences in the aetiology and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Teaching interests

Dr. Murray’s current research focuses on identifying novel biomarker panels to improve diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders. Elaine is particularly interested in the role of epigenetic modifications and sex differences in the aetiology and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Ongoing projects:

Antipsychotic Response Study
In collaboration with the Adult Psychiatry team in the Western Health and Social Care Trust, we are recruiting defined groups of schizophrenic patients and healthy controls to identify novel candidate biomarkers for antipsychotic treatment response and treatment resistance.

Antidepressant Response: Biological and Clinical Markers
The goal of this study is to identify candidate biomarkers to predict response to treatment with antidepressant medications by comparing genetic, epigenetic, inflammatory and microbial factors between defined groups of individuals with depression and healthy controls.

Analysis of Antidepressant Prescribing Patterns in Northern Ireland
Using anonymised data provided by the Honest Broker Service this study will examine demographic and socioeconomic factors that influence prescribing rates and antidepressant selection in Northern Ireland.

Ulster University Student Wellbeing Study
The Ulster University Student Wellbeing Study (#UlsterWellbeing) is part of the World Health Organisation’s Mental Health International College Student Project (WMH-ICS). In collaboration with Prof Siobhan O’Neill and colleagues from the Psychology Research Institute, the study will examine risk and protective factors for mental health problems and wellbeing in the student population over five years. The study also aims to examine genetic and other biological factors affecting mental health disorders and treatment efficacy.

Administrative Roles

Dr Murray is the co-ordinator of the Stratified Medicine Industrial Liaison Committee and is timetable co-ordinator for BSc (Hons) Stratified Medicine.

Tonina Sechi

Technician Neuromuscular Research Team

Dr Priyank Shukla

Senior Lecturer in Stratified Medicine (Bioinformatics)

Dr Priyank Shukla earned a First Class BSc in Biotechnology (2001-2004) from Bareilly College, MJPR University, Bareilly, India, followed by a First Class MSc in Bioinformatics (2004-2006) from University Institute of Engineering & Technology, CSJM University, Kanpur, India. Thereupon, he joined Laboratory of Genomics at Department of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Italy for 3-months as a Visiting Researcher to co-work on a Bioinformatics project aimed at full parsing of Genbank database, where he was awarded ‘DIEBA Prize for a Young Researcher working in Bioinformatics applied to Functional Genomics’.

Subsequently, he was awarded ‘Brains-in PhD Residential Scholarship’ (2007-2009) by the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Bologna, Italy, and ‘100-Young Indian Researcher Scholarship’ (2009-2010) by Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR), Government of Italy, to pursue a PhD in Computer Science (area of research: Machine Learning and Bioinformatics) at Bologna Biocomputing Group under the supervision of Professor Rita Casadio, where he developed Machine Learning based computational methods for prediction of disulphide bonding states of cysteine residues in proteins.

He then undertook a Postdoctoral Scientist (Bioinformatics) position at Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria (2010-2016), where he was responsible for consulting, data analysis and data management of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) based projects of Jak-Stat Signalling Consortium. His research then focused on applying NGS approaches to understand Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) and Jak-Stat Signalling – linking infection, inflammation and cancer. During his Postdoc stint he received travel grants from EMBO Germany, Virginia Tech USA and OIST Japan for presenting his research work.

He was appointed to the post of Lecturer in Stratified Medicine (Bioinformatics) at Ulster University in July 2016 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in April 2024. He has served as the Associate Course Director of MSc Personalised Medicine program at Ulster University from August 2021 to December 2022, and since June 2022 he is serving as the Course Director of BSc Personalised Medicine program. His current research interests are in the fields of Personalised Medicine, Bioinformatics and Positive Pedagogy in Higher Education. As a PI/Co-PI, he has been successful in securing research funding from The Academy of Medical Sciences UK, UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), Innovate UK, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) UK, Department for the Economy (DfE) Government of Northern Ireland, Invest NI, Health and Social Care Research & Development (HSC R&D), Novo Nordisk, The Wolfson Foundation, The Garfield Weston Trust, Wellcome Trust, British Council, British Science Association (BSA), British Association for International & Comparative Education (BAICE) and Advance HE.

He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK, Fellow of Centre for Higher Education Research and Practice UK, Honorary Fellow of the Istituto di Studi Avanzati (Institute of Advance Studies), Italy, and was awarded thrice Ulster University’s ‘Distinguished Education Excellence Award’; first time under ‘Professional Practice Innovation’ category in 2018, second time under ‘Early Career Educator’ category in 2019, and third time under ‘Collaborative Education Excellence Fellowship’ category in 2023.

Research Interests

Scientific Research

Dr Shukla aims in developing Machine Learning (ML) / Artificial Intelligence (AI) based computational methods for in silico biomarker discovery and patients’ stratification in inflammatory diseases, cancer and multimorbidity via exploiting high-throughput omics, clinical and healthcare data.

Pedagogic Research

Dr Shukla aims in developing Positive Pedagogy based learning & teaching (L&T) methods for cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary subjects taught in a multi-disciplinary course environment in higher education (HE) sector.

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate Teaching

• BIO132: Biocomputing & Programming (Module Coordinator)
• BIO352: Biomedical Informatics (Module Coordinator)
• BIO548: Applied Bioinformatics

Postgraduate Teaching

• BIO704: Coding Skills for Biologist (Module Coordinator)

Administrative Roles

• Course Director (June 2022 – present) – BSc Hons Personalised Medicine
• Associate Course Director (Aug 2021 – Dec 2022) – MSc Personalised Medicine

Dr Taranjit Singh Rai

Senior Lecturer

Overview:

Dr Taranjit Singh Rai has more than 10 years of research experience in the field of ageing, cancer and ageing associated diseases. Taranjit has a PhD from PGIMER, Chandigarh, India and Post Doctoral training at the Beatson Institute of Cancer Research, Glasgow. Taranjit has won several awards for outstanding research and teaching such as young scientist and UWS STARS Award. Taranjit has been educated in entrepreneurship at Babson College, Boston, USA where he finished a Saltire foundation fellowship programme, which is a condensed MBA style entrepreneurial course. Taranjit has published more than 25 collaborative papers in high impact peer-reviewed journals (h-index of 19 and >1500 citations) such as Genes and Development, Nucleic Acids Research, Nature, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Genetics etc. He has presented his research at various national and international conferences and is a keen public speaker. His work has been highlighted in national and international newspapers and in the mainstream media (BBC).

Research Interests:

Taranjit is interested in the role of cellular senescence in health and disease. Senescent cells accumulate in tissues of humans and other organisms with age. Cellular senescence is thought to promote cell and tissue ageing. Clearance of senescent cells from tissues of model organisms has been shown to be beneficial in multiple ageing diseases such as cardiovascular, osteoarthritis and more recently in Alzheimer’s. Taranjit is interested in utilizing novel senescence signatures to predict patient outcomes, risk stratification and personalized medicine. Taranjit’s group is using various senescence model systems to test compounds for their ability to eliminate/kill senescent cells. Such compounds are called senolytics. The laboratory utilizes artificial intelligence, machine learning tools and collaborates with mathematicians, programmers and bioinformaticians to predict the vulnerabilities of senescent cells with hope of finding new therapeutic drugs. Taranjit is looking for talented PhD students to join his laboratory. Support is also available for talented postdoctoral candidates to apply for fellowships from EMBO, Marie-Curie and other funding bodies.

Teaching Interests:

Cell/Molecular biology, Epigenetics, Ageing, Chromatin, Bio-entrepreneurship.

Grant Reviewer:MRC, BBSRC, AR UK, Dunhill Medical Trust etc.

Journal Reviewer:Nature Communications, Genome Research, Aging Cell, Ageing Research Reviews, Oncotarget etc.

Dr Steven Watterson

Lecturer in Computational Biology (Hypertension)

Dr Steven Watterson is a Computational Biologist at the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine with research interests in cholesterol metabolism and its role in cardiovascular disease, and also in the development of new mathematical and computational biology approaches to studying biological systems.

Steven has a first class MPhys Hons in Physics from the University of Edinburgh, a PhD in mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin and has studied non-equilibrium systems with Dr Chris Jarzynski at Los Alamos Laboratories.

He spent six years as a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh investigating the role of cholesterol metabolism in innate immunity in the lab of Prof Peter Ghazal at the Division of Infection and Pathway Medicine.  Here, he was part of the team to first uncover how cholesterol metabolism is regulated in response to cytomegalovirus infection.

Whilst at the University of Edinburgh, Steven also held joint appointments with the Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology.

Steven is a member of the Life and Medical Sciences Advisory Committee of the Royal Irish Academy and currently serves on the editorial board of Frontiers in Synthetic Biology.  He is also a member of the European Atherosclerosis Society and the Genetics Society.

Research Interests

Steven’s research focuses on the networks of interactions that exist between genes, proteins and small molecules that determine biological function.  In particular, Steven is interested in how the dynamics of these networks alter in disease, how they vary within and between populations and how they can be reprogrammed therapeutically.

Teaching Interests

Steven current serves as module coordinator for
BSc
BIO123 – Mathematical and Computational Methods 1
BIO337 – Mathematical and Computational Methods 2
MSc
BIO826 – Mathematical and Computational Methods

Dr Shu-Dong Zhang

Senior Lecturer

Shu-Dong Zhang initially trained as a physicist with a PhD from Beijing Normal University, specialising in non-equilibrium statistical physics and non-linear dynamics.

Before embarking on biology-oriented research, he worked on various topics in statistical physics, condensed matter physics and physical chemistry. Inspired and excited by the rapid advancement of modern biotechnologies, especially the high throughput omics technologies and the Human Genome Project, he became interested in quantitative and computational biology.

In 2002, he joined the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit to work side by side with biomedical scientists on transcriptomic profiling, particularly on the experimental design, methodology development, and data analysis issues associated with microarray technologies. He developed a statistical framework for designing two-colour cDNA microarray experiments, and related methods and tools to effectively detect differential gene expression. Dr Zhang investigated the effect of sample pooling in microarray experimentation, and the efficiencies and cost effectiveness of such practice. Those methods and tools have been routinely used by colleagues and collaborators in their experiments and data analysis.

Before joining the Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine, Dr Zhang worked as a Principal Investigator and a Lecturer in Bioinformatics in the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology (CCRCB) at Queen’s University Belfast. One major theme of his research was to establish novel connections between diseases and various small molecule compounds, utilising high throughput transcriptomic profiling data and employing powerful and advanced Bioinformatics techniques.

He led the BBSRC/MRC/EPSRC co-funded project on gene expression connectivity mapping, to develop innovative algorithms (gene signature perturbation, gene signature progression), new software tools (sscMap, cudaMap, QUADrATiC), and novel applications of connectivity mapping to repurpose FDA-approved drugs for cancers, eg, leukaemia, colorectal cancer, and inflammatory diseases, such as cystic fibrosis.

Dr Zhang's research also led to fruitful collaborations with biologists and cancer epidemiologists, securing joint collaborative projects funded by leading charities like Cancer Research UK. For example, applying the advanced connectivity mapping methods developed to a joint CRUK project, his work directly empowered cancer epidemiology research by providing highly promising candidate medications for population based studies with foreseeable healthcare implications.

Research Interests

Dr Zhang’s research generally involves the development of bioinformatics methods and techniques and their applications in biomedical sciences.

For the past few years, he has devoted a significant amount of efforts identifying prognostic and/or predictive biomarkers for different types of cancers with the aim of stratifying cancer patients into different prognosis/treatment groups.

Here at C-TRIC, Dr Zhang continues to pursue his research interest in developing novel methods for Stratified Medicine in the key disease areas of this Centre, through integrating patient clinical data with high throughput omics data including those based on Next Generation Sequencing technologies. Building upon the experience in stratifying cancer patients, combined with his expertise in disease gene signatures and drug-repurposing, Dr Zhang aims to make significant contributions to developing a comprehensive and integrated approach to stratified medicine.

Teaching Interests

Lecturer and Tutor for the following modules:
BIO337          Mathematical and Computational Methods 2
BIO535          In Silico Genomic Proteomic & Metabolomic Analyses Methods
BIO541          Biomedical Informatics
BIO124         Genetic inheritance and Omic Technologies

Administrative Roles

Module Coordinator for BIO337 Mathematical and Computational Methods 2, BSc Hons Stratified Medicine.

Professor Tony Bjourson

Emeritus Professor of Genomics

Professor Tony Bjourson obtained an MSc in Molecular Biosciences from Ulster University and a PhD (Cell signalling) from Queen’s University Belfast (1996).

He established and managed various genome programmes at DARDNI and Queens University Belfast, including participating in the EU Yeast Genome sequencing program (1994-1996).

After joining Ulster University in 2001 he led the Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (2003-2005) and Biomedical Genomics Research Groups (2005-2007).

He co-founded and was Director of the Clinical Translation Research & Innovation Centre (C-TRIC) based in L/Derry (2008-2021).

He was appointed Director of Ulster University’s Biomedical Sciences Research Institute (2007-2015), and Director of the  Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine (2013-2021) which he established at Altnagelvin Hospital (C-TRIC) with an £11.5M award.

He led a mult-national multisector €8.6M EU SEUPB Centre for Personalised Medicine Patient Safety and Clinical Decision Making from 2018-2021 and was co-applicant on the MRC funded Northern Ireland Genomic Medicine Centre.

He served as Director of the Ulster’s venture company Innovation Ulster Ltd (2007-2011), Steering Committee member of the Northern Ireland Biobank, and Council Member of the Irish Society for Human Genetics.

He has secured > £28M in personalised medicine research grants and supervised >25 PhD students.

Professor Aaron Peace

Professor Peace is a practicing Cardiologist, Director of Research and Development at the Western Health and Social Care Trust, and visiting Professor to the Ulster University Personalised Medicine Centre. After training in Queen’s University, Belfast he worked in Royal Northshore Hospital, Sydney and then Dublin, where he completed his Cardiology training.

During this he was awarded a Health Research Board Clinical Fellowship completing his PhD in Platelet biology. Following subspecialty training in Interventional Cardiology in the Cardiovascular Centre, OLV, Aalst, Belgium, he moved back to Northern Ireland.

Prof. Peace is a member of the HSC NI Digital Innovation Steering Group, the Northern Ireland Trusted Research Environment (NITRE) Steering Committee and Deputy Chair of the Honest Broker Governance Committee. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the European Heart Journal - Digital Health and the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) - Innovations and Digital Cardiology Committee. He has around 100 peer reviewed publications and reviews for many international peer review journals.

He is a Fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians and European Society of Cardiology. Prof. Peace is the CEO of C-TRIC, a non-for-profit company that facilitates research for industry and academic investigators. His special interests include Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Healthcare.

Professor Irene Rea

Professor Irene Maeve Rea combines her research and teaching interest in healthy ageing and inflammation with her work as a clinical consultant for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust in Older People’s Medicine, in ongoing research and teaching collaborations with colleagues from her previous role in clinical medical academic research at Queens University Belfast and with colleagues in the University of Ulster in hervisiting professorship at Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine, C_TRIC. The main focus of Professor Rea’s research is investigating factors that may explain why approximately 10% of 90-year-olds age slowly, combining long ‘lifespan’ with ‘health span’ and often cluster in families.

In my research collaborations at Queens University Belfast, I set up the Belfast Elderly Longitudinal Study (BELFAST), (Wellcome Trust funded), that continues to investigate immunological, cardiovascular risk, genetic and life-style measures that may have contributed to good quality ageing in BELFAST nonagenarians. In a follow-on 11-country, EU-funded collaboration, Genetics of Healthy Ageing (GEHA study), the genetic and lifestyle data collected from 4500 nonagenarian, sibling pairs confirmed the APOE2 gene, and identified a chromosome-5-gene, and the mitochondrial-111-oxidation/redox gene complex, as new gene-related factors contributing to longevity. In non-genetic studies, GEHA researchers, and colleagues from Queens University and University of Ulster (C_TRIC) are part of a world-wide group which is investigating the role that chronic inflammation plays in the development of the chronic diseases, that compromise good quality ageing.  A narrative review has also demonstrated the importance of optimism, resilience and good social networks in healthy ageing in GEHA nonagenarians.

Dr Irene Maeve Rea graduated in medicine at Queens University Belfast and during postgraduate clinical medical training obtained a visiting research scholarship to study at the Immunology, Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics laboratory at Stanford Medical School, following which she obtained MD in Neutrophil Function in Ageing. Professor Rea has lectured widely as an invited research speaker nationally and internationally and has contributed to undergraduate Medical training programmes at Harvard and in Taiwan. She continues to publish and peer review in wide range of age-related journals.

Professor Pierre-François Pradat

Professor Pierre-François Pradat, MD, PhD, an expert in neuromuscular diseases and especially motor neuron diseases (MNDs), obtained his medical degree and his PhD at the Sorbonne University (Paris, France). After his thesis in animal models of peripheral neuropathies and MNDs, he moved to the USA for a post-doctoral position at the Harvard Medical School in R.H.Jr Brown’s laboratory where he conducted research on drug screening in in vitro models of ALS. He then returned to Paris in the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital (Sorbonne University) where he has been practicing neurology for more than 15 years with special expertise in MNDs

He is also Visiting Professor within the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences (Ulster University, UK). Dr Pradat’s research interests have focused on translational and clinical research in neuromuscular diseases. His research contributed to better understanding of the role of muscular abnormalities in ALS pathogenesis and to identify new biomarkers and therapeutic targets. His other expertise is neuroimaging and more specifically the application of advanced spinal cord imaging in MNDs.

The research that he and his colleagues conducted has been published in Annals of Neurology, Neurology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Brain, Human Gene Therapy, Gene Therapy, Neuroimage and elsewhere. By October 2022 he (co)authored 204 peer-reviewed papers in international journals.