Ellen Reed
Ellen Reed
PhD Student
Thesis title: Investigating the contribution of glycan interactions in extracellular vesicle internalisation and propagation of pathological tau in human tauopathies
Primary Theme: Structural Biology
Secondary theme: Next-Generation Chemistry
Franklin supervisors: Dr Liang Wu, Dr Michael Grange, Prof Ben Davis
University: University College London (DRI)
University supervisors: Dr Stephanie Fowler, Prof Karen Duff
Ellen’s project is focused on unpicking some of the largely uncharacterised glycan-dependent mechanisms which facilitate tau propagation in human dementias. Combining expertise from the Franklin glycobiology group and the DRI at UCL, she will be using a broad range of techniques to determine cell-EV interaction sites with the long-term aim to achieve high resolution imaging of the mechanism.
Ellen graduated with a MRes in Biological Sciences from Royal Holloway University of London, where she also completed her BSc in Biomedical Sciences. Her research projects carried out at undergraduate and postgraduate level focused on developing gene expression signatures capable of diagnosing multiple cancer subtypes and also led to recent publications in the field of breast cancer research and data normalisation and quality control. During her time at Royal Holloway, Ellen developed a strong interest in genomics, proteomics and neuroscience and she is interested in expanding her area of research by developing a project focusing on Alzheimer’s Disease for her PhD.