As part of the Reproductive Biology and Genetics Research Team within the University and Research and Development lead for the Assisted Conception Unit within the hospital I concentrate on facilitating and developing research that makes optimum use of the facilities, excellent team members and opportunities within the two organisations.

My personal research interests are focused upon greater understanding of signalling and regulation of human gametes (the sperm and egg). This covers everything from trying to have a better understanding of how a sperm ‘recognises’ and egg and crucial events in fertilisation; through having a better understanding of the actual physiological ‘obstacle course’ the sperm faces in the female body and how it responds to that. I particularly have focused on developing and using imaging technologies to examine these events at a single-cell level to try and examine or identify the few ‘relevant’ cells in the very heterogeneous population which are actually capable of fertilisation.

Current Research funding

• Research with Drs Steve Publicover, Sarah Conner, Linda Lefievre and W Chris Ford on calcium signalling in human sperm and its modulation by factors such as nitric oxide exposure. Research in this area and other modulators of calcium signalling forms the basis of the majority of PhD studentships within our group.
  

• Research on chemotaxis in human sperm (they are attracted to the smell of Lily of the Valley!) and G-protein coupled receptors alongside the Group of Dr Marc Spehr in Bochum, Germany.
  

• Novel modulators of human sperm function alongside Dr Liam Cox and John Snaith (Chemistry, Birmingham).
  

• A strong collaboration on fluid dynamics in the female reproductive tract (MRC Research Fellow Dr David Smith; Professor John Blake (Mathematics Bham); Dr Eamonn Gaffney (Maths, Oxon)). This involves various advanced imaging modalities available through our ongoing collaboration with Cairn Research.
  

• Research into egg-activation and glycoproteins of the egg and its vestments alongside Dr Sarah Conner.
  

• How the human sperm interacts with the female reproductive tract through use of imaging of sperm on tissue explants.

If you have a project that you think may interest us, or you are interested in working with the research group we are always pleased to hear from you.

Also look at the pages of our clinic at http://www.bhamivf.com for more information on other allied research being undertaken through the Centre for Human Reproductive Science (ChRS)

Publications