Key details
Dr Yvonne Walsh
Research Associate
Yvonne carried out her PhD research at the Medway School of Pharmacy. The project was researching the regulation of mammalian two pore potassium ion channels with interest in TREK1, TREK2 and TRESK. These channels have been predicted to have considerable therapeutic promise in a range of CNS disorders including depression, pain and migraine. The research carried out included whole-cell patch clamp on tsA -201 cells.
In 2019, Yvonne started working in the University of Greenwich in the Fivaz lab which is focused on the role of bioelectric signalling in human stem cell models of cortical development. In addition to this, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing was utilised to create mutations found in two pore domain potassium ion channels.
Posts previously held
- Medway School of Pharmacy - Research Assistant
Yvonne used epifluorescence and confocal microscopy to ensure trafficking of wildtype and mutate K2P channels to the membrane of tsA -201 cells. Yvonne also characterised the effects of the activator terbinafine on U-2 OS cells transfected with TASK3 ion channel.
Responsibilities within the university
To provide support to the Msc and MPharm project students.
Research / Scholarly interests
The main objective of Yvonne's current research is to model human brain development using pluripotent stem cells and brain organoids. Current projects include (i) modelling disorders using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, (ii) bioelectric signalling in neural stem cell proliferation and cortical development and (iii) investigate novel K2P channel activators for the alleviation of pain.