Customer profile: Felix Chan
Name: Felix Chan
Qualifications: MRes (neuroscience), PhD (coming soon!)
Job title: Research Assistant
Place of work: University of Newcastle, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle, UK
Supervisor: Dr Mark Cunningham
Publications
- Chan et al Neuronal oscillations: A physiological correlate for targeting mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases? Neuropharmacology. 2016 Mar;102:48-58 PMID: 26518370
- Clowry et al What are the Best Animal Models for Testing Early Intervention in Cerebral Palsy? Front Neurol. 2014 Dec 4;5:258. PMID: 25538677
- Lax et al Extensive respiratory chain defects in inhibitory interneurones in patients with mitochondrial disease: Interneurone pathology in mitochondrial disease Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol. 2016 Feb;42(2):180-93. PMID: 25786813
Your background
I’m originally a medical student from Indonesia and I came to Newcastle to do my MRes degree as an intercalating degree. I then shifted towards completing my PhD before finishing medical studies.
Can you summarise your research / role now?
I’ve been working on modelling mitochondrial epilepsy throughout my PhD. At the moment, we’re working with GW Pharma to test some novel cannabidiol compounds on mitochondrial epilepsy.
Why is this research important?
This research is important because really, it’s the first ever model of mitochondrial epilepsy so it’s new and exciting and good for pharmacological screening. Having a good, robust model is very important.
What techniques do you use?
Primarily in vitro electrophysiology in brain slices but I also do some immunohistochemistry (IHC).
What Hello Bio products do you use / have you used in your research?
We regularly use your antagonists such as NBQX, D-AP5 and Gabazine in the lab for our pharmacology studies.
What has using these products helped you to achieve?
Your compounds have helped us a lot in carrying out a very high quality pharmacology study. Especially the formulations of compounds you offer where you only need to add 1 ml of water to make a 10mM stock solution (Hello Bio mM EasyPacks). This means we don’t need to calculate any weights and we can easily dissolve them and use the solution directly. It’s also very useful for students who aren’t used to calculations.
What are your ambitions for your future career?
I’ve nearly finished my PhD and once I’ve finished my medical training my end goal is to be an academic clinician.
Thanks for sharing Felix - we wish you all the best for your future career as an academic clinican!
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