Elizabeth Dellar

DPhil MBiolSci

Postdoctoral Researcher

Biography

I graduated with a degree in Molecular Biology (MBiolSci) at the University of Sheffield, during which time I spent a year in the pharmaceutical industry working on target validation in neurodegenerative disease. I then completed my DPhil in Oxford as part of the Interdisciplinary Bioscience Doctoral Training Programme, studying the effect of oxidative stress on RNA cargo loading into extracellular vesicles. In 2021 I moved to my current postdoctoral position with Alexander Thompson in the Oxford Motor Neuron Disease Centre to work on biomarker discovery for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as motor neuron disease).

Research Summary

My research is is centred on the discovery and development of mechanistic biomarkers for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This includes proteomic profiling of biofluids from ALS patients and asymptomatic carriers of the disease-causing C9orf72 variant, in collaboration with the Target Discovery Institute. Through this work we hope to deepen our understanding of an early pre-symptomatic phase in ALS, so that we can identify new targets for early therapeutic intervention. I further lead a programme of research on the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in the pathogenesis of ALS, and the potential of biofluid-derived extracellular vesicles as a source of new biomarkers in ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases.

My work is funded by the Motor Neurone Disease Association and a Medical Sciences pump priming grant.