Professor Nicola Robertson – Group Lead
Professor Nikki Robertson trained in neonatal medicine in Melbourne and London after completing her medical training at the University of Edinburgh. Her interest in perinatal brain injury was kindled at the Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London in the late 1990s, a time of exponential increase in our understanding of the evolution of brain injury after birth asphyxia.
Using MRI and MRS, the timing and evolution of brain injury in babies with neonatal encephalopathy (NE) could be followed, leading to the seminal finding that therapeutic hypothermia (HT) ameliorates the secondary wave of energy failure. HT is now standard care in babies with NE, however, not all babies benefit. Since 2003 at UCL, Professor Robertson has used pre-clinical models at UCL to assess the safety and efficacy of additional therapies that can complement and synergize with HT, eg melatonin and human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells.
Dr Alison Mintoft
Alison joined the lab in 2020 as a neonatal clinical research fellow. She studied medicine at the University of Leeds and has an intercalated BSc in Anatomy. Alison is a neonatal sub-specialty trainee. She combines time working clinically as a registrar on the neonatal unit at University College London Hospital and research in the pre-clinical lab at UCL. She has an interest in the role of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy as a neuroprotective intervention for perinatal asphyxia.
Dr Raymand Pang
Raymand joined the lab in 2018 as a neonatal clinical research fellow. He studied biochemistry at Imperial College London followed by medicine at the University of Warwick. Raymand is a paediatric trainee in London with an interest in neonatology. He combines clinical training as a registrar on the neonatal unit at University College London Hospital and research in the pre-clinical lab at UCL. Currently he is registered as a PhD student at UCL supervised by Professor Robertson and Professor Barks investigating the safety and efficacy of azithromycin and melatonin in the IS-HI piglet model.
Mr Adnan Avdic-Belltheus (Senior Lab Technician)
Adnan Avdic-Belltheus is the Senior Research Technician for the neonatal neuroprotection group based at UCL and Roslin Institute, Edinburgh. He graduated in zoology at James Cook University in Australia after which he obtained a Master of Research from the Royal Veterinary College in London. He is an accomplished vivisectionist with over 10 years’ experience in preclinical research, animal welfare, surgical procedures, and operative care in a range of animal species. Over the last several years he has spent time perfecting and expanding our porcine model of neonatal encephalopathy at UCL, Institute of Neurology in London. His interests are animal models and welfare.
Mr Christopher Meehan
Chris is a Lab technician within the group. He read Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and has an MSc in Neuroscience from King’s College London. He is experienced in performing pre-clinical surgical procedures, and a variety of histological and biochemical laboratory techniques.
Miss Georgina Norris
Georgina completed my undergrad in Zoology at Swansea University with a focus on animal behaviour and anatomy. I am now a laboratory technician here at the Queen’s Square Institute of Neurology.
Miss Sarah Han
Sarah Han received her Master's degree in Pharmaceutics and Bachelor's degree from UCL in 2018 and 2017 respectively, where she started to develop interests in neurological disorders. In 2020, she joined the group as a laboratory technician.
Physicists
Professor Xavier Golay
Xavier Golay is a Professor of MR Neurophysics and Translational Neuroscience at the UCL Institute of Neurology in Queen Square, London, UK. Professor Golay received a PhD. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich (ETHZ). His research interests lie at the intersection of many disciplines, such as NMR physics, chemistry, physiology and neuroscience. They include the development of MRI as a translational tool for neurological diseases, measuring identical image-based biomarkers from mouse to human, and from the laboratory to the clinical settings. As translation has many meanings, parts of his most important research interests include the development of MRI techniques to be used as image-based outcome measures or biomarkers in the same way in animal model of diseases or in human patients. His hope is to reduce the cycle of drug development in neurological diseases by allowing academic or pharmaceutical institutions to use similar tests across species.
- Dr Alan Bainbridge
- Dr Magda Sokolowska
- Dr Francisco Torrealdea
Previous Members
- Dr Kathryn Martinello
- Dr Ingran Lingam
- Mr Qin Yang
- Miss Tentenda Mutshiya
- Miss Sarah Rageb
- Dr. Eridan Rocha Ferreira
- Dr. Mojgan Ezzati
- Dr Jane Hassel
- Dr. Marion Bohatschek
Collaborators:
UCL
Dr Subhabrata Mitra (Wellcome Trust Fellow, Principle research fellow, UCL Institute for Women's Health)
Prof Ilias Tachtsidis (Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Dept of Med Phys & Biomedical Eng, Faculty of Engineering Science)
Dr Mariya Hristova (Senior Research Associate, Department of Maternal and Fetal Medicine, UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health
Dr Cally Tann (Associate Professor Global Newborn Health & Early Child Development, LSHTM)
Dr Robert Sanders (Honorary Lecturer, Department of Anaesthesia & Surgical Outcomes Research Centre, University College London Hospital and Wellcome Trust Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College London)
Professor Mark Lowdell, Institute of Immunity & Transplantation, University College London
International
Professor John Barks, Professor of Pediatrics, University of Michigan
Professor Sandra Juul, Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington
Professor Pierre Gressens, Kings College London, INSERM U676, Paris, University Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cite, Paris, France
Professor Boris Kramer, Fac. Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Maaastricht
Dr Bobbi Fleiss Kings College London, INSERM U676, Paris, University Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cite, Paris, France
Professor Hendrik Hagberg, University of Gothenberg
Professor Deirdre Murray, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University College, Cork
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