Project Title: Elucidation of metabolism alteration
Supervisor: Professor Zoltan Takats & Professor Paul Matthews
Location: 4th Floor Sir Alexander Building, South Kensington
About Me
I graduated from the University of Lille in France with a BSc degree in Biochemistry in 2016, specialising in proteins and lipids metabolism and the different techniques to study proteins functions and structure. I also had the opportunity to do an internship in the NMR team for glycoproteins studies of Lille University in 2016 where I learnt how to produce and purify pathological alkyled and phosphorylated proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease for NMR studies.
From 2016-2018, I did an MSc in Biotechnologies in which I studied both Genomics and Proteomics techniques to resolve biological question.
In 2017, I studied for 5 months the effect of the O-GlcNAcylation of the MCM protein complex involved in DNA-Replication in breast cancer.
Then during the second year of my Msc, I specialized in Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry to complete the skills I had
I completed a one month internship at the University of Strasbourg in the LSMS team to learn how to study and extract ancient and fragile proteins from mummy’s’ hair. Then I took part of the SpiderMass project developed by Pr. I. Fournier from the Prism Laboratory in Lille, France, in which I had to develop a spray interface for Mass Spectrometry analysis in-vivo using the SpiderMass technology.
I was awarded an MRC funded Studentship and I am currently undertaking a PhD in Mass Spectrometry imaging to elucidate the metabolism changes in Alzheimer’s disease in Pr. Z. Takats team at Imperial College and under the co-supervision of Pr. P. Matthews from the DRI. I am currently doing my first year of PhD mainly focusing on improving lipidomics analyses and proteomics analyses using Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry.
Out of my PhD, I like to play the violin or clarinet as well as drawing and doing gym exercises.
Qualifications
- PhD (expected 2023) Clinical Medical Research at Imperial College London, 2019 - present
- MSc Biotechnologies speciality in Proteomics from University of Lille, France, 2016 - 2018
- BSc Biochemistry from University of Lille, France, 2013 - 2016
Research Interests
Dementia is a progressive process that occurs after the loss of brain cognitive functions due to neuronal cells death. The metabolic changes occurring in the brain affect different biochemical pathways of proteins, lipids or metabolites such as neurotransmitters. The combination of these abnormal bio-reaction leads to the appearance of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by impairing brain capacities. The use of mass spectrometry imaging makes it possible to compile identification and geographical distribution of the molecules of interest. Moreover, Desorption Electrospray Ionization-Imaging allows the direct study of brain samples without the need of conventional and time-consuming sample preparation.
The first experiments are being done on brains from APPNL-G-F KI mice, to have general information and find specific biological target to understand the pathological modifications in AD brains. The protocol and method development on mice samples will be applied to human samples to compare the future research results. The optimal goal is to untangled some of the unknown events happening in dementia of AD type and potentially to find out new therapeutic target.
Contact Details
Email: r.yagoubi19@ic.ac.uk
LinkedIn: riad-yagoubi-394826145
