Kirsty Spalding's Group

Originally from Australia, I completed my PhD in the field of neuroscience at the University of Western Australia. This was followed by postdoctoral studies at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, where I switched from studying neuronal cell death to neuronal birth. During the later stages of my postdoctoral period I started a side project looking at fat cell turnover in human adipose tissue. This project developed in to several more projects and now the major interest of my research group is the turnover and maintenance of human adipose tissue, in health and pathology.

I have a Bachelor of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at KI. I have been working in the Spalding group as a lab manager since 2012. Between 1993 and 2012 I was working as a research scientist at AstraZeneca R&D, CNS and Pain. I have 3 years experience at a Clinical Immunology lab at Huddinge hospital as a laboratory technician. I have many administrative tasks in the group, but also contribute to various scientific project.

I am investigating podocyte regeneration in the human kidney, using radiocarbon dating of human cells to define cell turnover dynamics in kidney health and disease.

I am studying the biological mechanisms underlying adipocyte turnover and obesity development, performing in vivo and in vitro studies with mouse and human white adipose tissues.

I am investigating human mature adipocyte and preadipocyte turnover rates from both visceral and subcutaneous fat depots using radiocarbon dating, in lean and obese individuals.

After completing a master’s degree in medical epigenomics at the Radboud University, I am currently working as a doctoral student in Kirsty’s group. Here I study the browning potential of mature white adipocytes using fluorescence microscopy, qPCR and other techniques from molecular biology. 

I am studying the molecular mechanisms mediating adipocyte turnover in white adipose tissue from healthy and metabolically unhealthy patients to understand the factors that contribute to the development of metabolic disease.

I complete my PhD in Nutrigenomics and Personalized Nutrition. The aim of my postdoctoral fellowship is to understand whether adipose tissue consist of subsets of adipocytes with different functions, potentially coming from different origins, the project investigates the heterogeneity of human adipocytes.

I have a background in human adipocyte progenitor cells and their functional heterogeneity. I focus on deconstructing mature adipocyte heterogeneity at a single-cell level to identify the subsets of adipocytes promoting metabolic health and disease in humans.

After finishing my bachelor in biochemistry, I am now in Kirsty Spalding's group participating in the kidney regeneration project.