Supervisors: Professor Neil Perkins, Dr Nick Watkins and Dr Alessio Iannetti

I studied Biochemistry at Newcastle University during which I completed a summer project with Dr Niall Kenneth after my second year. This project studied the relationship between hypoxia and liver fibrosis. After my summer project I decided to apply for a PhD. During the third year of my degree I was supervised by Prof Perkins and Dr Hunter for my final project. I investigated the role of claspin, a cell cycle checkpoint regulator, in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Project Title: The Regulation of NFkB by Ribotoxic Stress

My project studies the link between a complex that forms as a response to ribotoxic stress, the 5S RNP, and the NFkB pathway. Ribotoxic stress involves the inhibition of ribosome biogenesis in response to DNA damage, hypoxia, oxidative stress and oncogene expression. The 5S RNP forms in response to stress and activates p53 activity in cells. The NFkB family of transcription factors mainly regulate the inflammatory response in cells, however have been linked to many other cellular processes. In particular NFkB is known to regulate p53 activity. Our data suggests that the 5S RNP and NFkB are directly interacting to induce a p53 response in response to ribotoxic stress.