A central theme in my research is the relationship between cells and tissues, and the integrated dynamics of tissue architecture. During development, cells self-organise into functional tissue architectures through regulated interactions between gene expression, positional identity, mechanics, and extracellular environment. In adult wound healing, many of these principles reappear in different guise: tissues respond to injury, restore barrier function, remodel matrix, and re-establish structure under inflammatory, mechanical, and metabolic constraints. I am interested in how these processes can be understood experimentally and, ultimately, directed towards improved human tissue repair.
My background spans skin biology, regenerative medicine, adult stem-cell systems, biomaterials, and quantitative tissue analysis. My PhD was guided by the paradigm of Tissue Engineering, applied to human primary cells and tissue, and focused on key transcription factors and cell phenotypic landscapes. During my postdoctoral work, I studied evolutionary neurodevelopment of the cortex (A-P patterning of CNS) in mice and drosophila, and specifically the role of Polycomb-dependent regulation of Hox genes and down-stream spatiotemporal effects on cell fates. This work strengthened my interest in how regulatory cascades, developmental history, and tissue self-organisation give rise to mature or perturbed anatomical structures. I now apply this broader biological perspective to wound healing and skin tissue biology, where the central question is not only which cells are present, but how they are organised, instructed, and constrained within the tissue environment.
Experimentally, I have experience with cell phenotype dynamics, human adult stem cells, stromal cell niches, tissue culture, genetic engineering, porcine skin wound models, histology, fluorescence microscopy, and biomimetic biomaterial systems. Analytically, I am interested in microscopy-based tissue quantification, multiomic datasets, bioinformatics, and abstract representations of biological states. These approaches are united by a common aim: to understand complex tissue behaviour across scales, from molecular regulation and cell–matrix interaction to tissue architecture and functional repair.
The long-term goal of my work is to contribute to wound healing research that is both mechanistically rigorous and clinically useful. Non-healing wounds, pathological scarring, and impaired tissue repair remain major medical and societal problems. Better models of skin repair, combined with biomaterials, antimicrobial strategies, and quantitative biological analysis, may help define new routes towards advanced wound care and regenerative medicine.