I’m a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, where I study how muscle stem cell-mediated regeneration is regulated. In particular, I am interested in how biophysical forces at the stem cell niche contribute to muscle stem cell activation and fate, and how altered ‘sensing’ of those forces in pathological conditions contributes to impaired regeneration. Previous to this role, I was a postdoctoral research associate at University College London (UCL), where my work aimed to improve the engraftment of transplanted muscle stem cells, and to develop better disease models. Prior to that, I completed my PhD at King’s College London (KCL), characterising how abnormal expression of DUX4  in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy myoblasts impairs their regenerative ability.

While my research has focused on skeletal muscle stem cells, I have a wide interest in the tools, techniques and models that they can be studied with. This spans from cell and molecular biology to gene editing, bioengineering, biophysics and synthetic biology. I love reading about new developments in biomedical research, and preLights is a great community to learn about out new and exciting papers!