Biography

I completed my bachelor’s degree through the BSc (Honours) Biomedical Sciences 2+1 programme in which the first two years of undergraduate studies were conducted at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia and the third year at the UK campus. For my final year dissertation, I undertook a project to investigate the molecular genetic basis of mitochondrial disease at the Wellcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research with my current supervisory team and was able to continue this work into PhD studies sponsored by the Lily Foundation and a Newcastle University Overseas Research Scholarship

Research Focus

Identifying new genes and molecular mechanisms in mitochondrial disease.

My PhD project aims to functionally-characterise novel candidate gene variants, identified through the high-throughput, next generation sequencing of patients with suspected of mitochondrial disease in collaboration with the Highly Specialised Mitochondrial Diagnostic Laboratory. This work not only helps to characterise new mitochondrial disease genes but dissect the molecular mechanisms causing mitochondrial dysfunction and disease pathogenesis. Additionally, I am developing and optimising a genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 transcriptional activation screen with the aim of identifying unknown genes involved in the regulation of mitochondrial function, focussing on mitochondrial biological pathways that could potentially be investigated as sites for therapeutic treatments.

Sponsor/funder: The Lily Foundation & Newcastle University Overseas Research Scholarship

Publications

Tang, J.X., Thompson, K., Taylor, R.W. and Oláhová, M. (2020) Mitochondrial OXPHOS biogenesis: co-regulation of protein synthesis, import and assembly pathways. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21, 3820. PMID: 32481479