Overview

Cohort: 9

I’m a Clinical Research Fellow in Immunology at Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine, currently ST4 in Allergy and Immunology.

My academic background includes BMBS and BMedSci (Nottingham), MSc Infectious Diseases (LSHTM, Merit), and MRCP (2021).

I have an established publication record in VEXAS syndrome with first-author papers in The Lancet Rheumatology, Rheumatology (Oxford), and British Journal of Haematology.

PhD title

Clinical evolution and pathogenesis of VEXAS syndrome – towards improved understanding of haematoinflammatory disorders.

Brief summary of PhD project

I’m investigating VEXAS syndrome, a recently discovered inflammatory disease caused by somatic UBA1 mutations affecting ubiquitination pathways.

My project has three integrated aims:

1. characterising the clinical landscape of VEXAS through a systematic review of clinical features, retrospective analysis of UK treatment outcomes, and a meta-analysis of global treatment outcomes;
2. development of functional assays for variant pathogenicity assessment and rapid diagnostic screening;
3. proteomics analysis of ubiquitination patterns in iPSC-derived cells to identify therapeutic targets.

This translational approach combines rigorous clinical characterisation with mechanistic laboratory investigation.

Key collaborators/supervisors

Lead supervisor

Professor Sinisa Savic (Clinical Immunology, University of Leeds; VEXAS syndrome co-discoverer)

Co-supervisors

• Professor Elton Zeqiraj (ubiquitination biology, Leeds)
• Dr James Poulter (functional assay development, Leeds)
• Professor Evan Kontopantelis (data science and meta-analysis, Manchester)

International partners

• French and US teams (PROMs development)
• Professor David Beck (NIH, USA)
• UK VEXAS Interest Group

Specialty interest/techniques

Haematoinflammatory disorders and autoinflammatory diseases.

Core competencies:

• systematic review and meta-analysis
• CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing
• iPSC culture and differentiation
• functional biochemical assays
• quantitative proteomics
• advanced statistical analysis (R, Python)
• patient-public involvement methodologies.

Career aspirations

Establishing an independent clinical academic career bridging mechanistic immunology with therapeutic development.

I’m focused on translating ubiquitination biology insights into precision diagnostics and treatments for rare inflammatory conditions, while developing collaborative research networks and mentoring future clinical scientists.

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