Teaching

I teach Physiology and Pharmacology to first-year pre-clinical medical students, as well as critical analysis to first-year, second-year and FHS students.

About me

I was awarded my DPhil from the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa.  Following a brief post-doctoral period in South Africa, I moved to the UK to pursue postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford.  I am currently starting up my own laboratory in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics.

Research

My doctoral work in the Department of Chemical Pathology at the UCT Medical School introduced me to the ATP Binding Cassette (ABC) family of membrane transporters, which has been the focus of my research ever since.  This structurally-conserved protein family is remarkably diverse in function and I have been privileged to be involved in this field from its infancy.

My post-doctoral research in Oxford focused on neonatal diabetes, a rare form of type 2 diabetes, and the dysfunctional ABC transporters involved in this disease.  More recently, my focus shifted to studying the role ABC transporters in gut endocrine K- and L-cells.  These cells are involved in nutrient sensing in the small intestine and the subsequent secretion of appropriate peptide hormones which regulate several essential physiological responses to food intake.

Graduate teaching

I have supervised graduate students at Masters and PhD level and would welcome prospective students interested in the fields of diabetes and obesity, and the membrane transporters and signal transduction pathways involved in these pathologies.

Departmental webpage