The causes of sporadic thoracic aortic aneurysms are not understood but the consequences of this disease can be catastrophic. We have developed an animal model of disease and this together with human tissue will be used to identify the molecular determinants (mRNA, microRNA, epigenetic) of disease progression by analysis of the endothelial cell and smooth muscle cell compartments.
The importance of the identified genes will be confirmed through analysis of human disease, performed in collaboration with Prof Richmond Jeremy and Prof Paul Bannon, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Camperdown - Centenary Institute
Masters/PHD
Technologies to be used include animal and in vitro models of disease, cell extraction and isolation, gene arrays probing gene and miRNA expression, molecular analysis of signalling pathways, expression analysis in extensive clinical and archival human material, iPS cell isolation and analysis.
Our study into diseases of the Aorta is a new initiative established in collaboration with clinicians at RPAH (Jeremy, Richmond, Bannon). Recently, Dr Liu has been appointed to head this laboratory as the David Richmond Fellow.
Additional Supervisor: Dr Renjing Liu
The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 1168